Recently I have been exploring different methods for adding GPS data to images captured from digital SLRs. GPS data includes latitude and longitude coordinates as well as elevation. My goal is to utilize online technologies that allow sharing of geotag data such as Google Earth and Flickr. Although many camera makers have dedicated modules available for adding GPS data, they are quite expensive. As an option, several third-party manufacturers sell similar devices at half the cost, however they are still in the range of $100 or more.

A cost-effective solution for users of the iPhone 3G or 3Gs is an application called MotionX GPS. Using a solution based on software has several advantages over hardware devices including cost, as MotionX GPS sells for only $2.99. MotionX includes a host of features that should prove to be useful in the field. The basic function of a GPS tracking device is to record a constant “track” of movement. A track includes information such as time, speed, distance, max speed, and a map of your route. The saved track can then be synchronized with photographs taken during the outing.

So let’s see how this process works. The first step is to synchronize the clock in your camera with your iPhone. Without an accurate timestamp you won’t be able to accurately merge the GPS tracking data with your images. Step number two is to start a new track in MotionX GPS using the track recorder feature. From this point forward it will record my every movement as well as give me an elapsed time readout and distance information as well. At the end of the outing I’ll stop the recording and save the track giving it a unique name.

After the recording is completed you can view the track overlaid on a satellite ( you can also use road or hybrid views) map in MotionX GPS, which supports either MotionX maps, Google Maps, or Bing Maps. At this point there won’t be any correlation between your photographs and the recorded track, this will happen once the track is downloaded to your computer.

At this point I need to export the track out of MotionX GPS. One of the simplest ways to accomplish this is to share it via an e-mail which I send to myself. MotionX GPS can export in the standard .GPX format which can be used by almost any mapping program available.

Once I have downloaded the GPX file as an e-mail attachment, I’ll need to use geotagging software to merge the GPS data with my photographs. At the moment, my favorite tool for this is the HoudahGeo software. While there are free geotagging software titles available for MacOS X, I’m sold on HoudahGeo simplicity, robustness, and speed, which together create a best in class experience for me. While HoudahGeo is a Mac only application, there are many similar titles available for Windows users. There are really only three steps to merging the GPS data with my images with HoudahGeo. The first step is to drag my selected photographs into the HoudahGeo window. My main cataloging tool is Adobe Lightroom, so I create a collection in Lightroom for a specific outing. I then select the images in the collection and drag them into the HoudahGeo application. The second step is to select the downloaded GPX file which HoudahGeo then automatically synchronizes the GPS data with the photographs. The final step is to export the resulting data to Google Maps, or Google Earth, or upload to Flickr. HoudahGeo will create XMP sidecar files for storing the geotag information when using Raw image formats.

The process is now complete and you can take full advantage of the new geotagged data in your images. So what can I do with this new information? Well I can share my walks with the online community, I can illustrate my travels for a blog post, I can even jump start my fading memory when I have trouble recalling my shooting locations. For this quick tutorial I’ve uploaded a Google Earth file in the .KMZ format that includes 14 snapshots taken while on a morning walk along the central lagoon on Bay Farm Island. You will need to have the Google Earth application installed on your computer in order to see the contents of the HoudahGeoTest.kmz file. This link will take you directly to the file. HoudahGeoTest.kmz

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]]> http://www.fldigital.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=126 http://www.fldigital.com/blog/?p=97 http://www.fldigital.com/blog/?p=97#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:02:11 +0000 admin http://www.fldigital.com/blog/?p=97

Saturday morning brought forth a perfect blue sky and equally pleasant temperatures for the second annual Worldwide Photo Walk sponsored by Scott Kelby Training and Adobe. About 40 other photographers and I joined walk leader Tom Hogarty and members of the Lightroom, Photoshop, Bridge and Camera Raw teams for one of the four Photowalks scheduled this year in San Francisco! We couldn’t have asked for better conditions.

We met in the morning at the Adobe offices in downtown San Francisco and spent the next two hours exploring the local environs with cameras in hand. I always enjoy working side-by-side with other photographers, as everyone brings a unique vision and style towards capturing the subject at hand.  And here on the outskirts of this SOMA neighborhood, the predominant subject was architecture and the urban environment.

With the sun bright and the shadows driven towards an inky black, the day was tailor-made for HDR experimentation. My first sequence of the day was this colorful block of apartments directly behind the Adobe offices. Framing the sun just out of sight behind the building gave the sky a hint of drama. This image is comprised of seven bracketed shots one-stop apart. The HDR was processed with Photomatix and finessed into its final form in Lightroom and Photoshop.

The panorama was shot on the back side of the building, and is comprised of two HDR images manually stitched together in Photoshop. You can see a few clouds starting to creep in on the left side of the image. As the day wore on the sky became much more dramatic, something we don’t often see here in San Francisco.

This final image was shot in the maintenance yard of the wheeled trolley fleet. This old London double-decker bus sat alone in the corner of the yard magnificent in its slowly deteriorating state. The colors really were this garish, although the HDR treatment has boosted their vibrancy somewhat. I think it enhances the cartoonish character and the tight framing of the subject.

It was a nice break to fade into the background and not be the center of attention while out with a large group, although I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely separate myself from my role as instructor. You can see more images from the other walk participants on the dedicated homepage for the group. SF Adobe Photowalk.

Q:

Why is it when I view my rendered raw files in Adobe Lightroom the images look different from the JPEG files shot at the same time?

A:

The Adobe software, which includes Lightroom and the Adobe ACR module, both use default rendering profiles that can produce changes in color and saturation from the look of the camera processed JPEG’s. Adobe Camera Raw 5.3 and Lightroom 2.3 both incorporate custom camera profiles that can mimic the default look of your cameras JPEG’s.

The first step in utilizing these profiles is to make sure you have the most recent version of either Lightroom 2.3 or Adobe ACR 5.3 (current for Adobe Photoshop CS4) loaded on your system. Since the process of using these profiles is slightly different in the two programs, I’ll start with the description for Lightroom first.

Adobe Lightroom 2.3

The camera profiles are located in the Camera Calibration panel at the bottom of the Develop Module. From the profile drop-down in this menu select the appropriate profile to match the picture style you want to use. These profiles are unique for each camera model supported by Adobe Lightroom 2.3, and match the same names you would find in the camera’s menu. Depending on the profile you select, you will see a greater or lesser degree of change as the on-screen preview is updated to match the new profile.

You can in fact save this as the new default profile for your camera by creating a new user preset. This preset can subsequently be invoked during the initial import of raw files.

Adobe Photoshop CS4

For Adobe Camera Raw 5.3 the camera profiles are found under the Camera Calibration tab. Select the appropriate style from the Camera Profile drop-down menu. Your chosen profile can also be stored as a new default preset. This can be invoked from the Edit / Develops Settings menu in the Adobe Bridge.

As much as I would like to control the light source in my photography, be it using fill light or in a fully controlled studio set up, there are times when you are solely at the mercy of available light. I encountered one of these challenges a few weeks back while photographing my daughter’s first dance recital. Her preschool staged their performance in a local high school auditorium. What was sorely lacking was any sense of lighting design. To put it bluntly, the lighting was abysmal as the entire stage was lit from a single spotlight that was neither directed at nor found most of the little three-year-olds performers. Fortunately, the current generation of digital SLR’s have a phenomenal ability to pull excellent detail out of even the most poorly lit subjects. The high ISO capabilities of cameras like the Nikon D700 and the Canon 5D MkII push the limits of usable ISO as high as 6400.

My strategy for shooting this performance was to take advantage of the sophisticated metering capabilities of the D700 while shooting at 3200 ISO. Here is where Spot metering shines as the camera metered solely off my daughter’s costume, ignoring the pitch black stage. I was able to shoot at a shutter speed fast enough to stop most of the motion in the scene. Since the lighting never changed, I shot in manual mode to prevent any unwanted shifts in exposure due to framing errors (spot mode being very difficult to track moving subjects.) Shot in raw with a custom white balance, and with a little post processing work in Noise Ninja I was able to clean up most of the visible noise in the image.

I’m still amazed at how clean these images are 3200 ISO. Under these circumstances, images with this quality would not have been possible with a previous generation’s  equipment.

As a photographer and father of 3 1/2 year old twins, I have captured them in every waking moment to the tune of 17,000 images and counting.  It was inevitable that at some point they would start to wonder what was going on inside that heavy black box I am constantly carrying around. And so, from the age of 2 1/2 they have become increasingly interested in the process of photography, and more recently have taken an active role as both models and artistic directors. Usually the first thing I hear after the shutter clicks is, “daddy, can I see it?” Due in no small part to the instant feedback available with today’s digital equipment, the girls are quickly learning how to interpret both abstract and natural representations of the world from the camera’s two-dimensional viewpoint.

Yesterday we stopped into my studio on our way to the San Francisco Zoo to pick up some spare batteries. What started out as a short detour turned into a one hour marathon shooting session once the girls discovered some light stands and umbrellas leftover from a previous workshop.  I showed them how the portable speedlights I usually carry with me are used with the umbrellas to soften and diffuse the light for portrait work. Audrey promptly asked if she could take a picture of Tamsin and daddy. So with a major adjustment to the cameras hand strap and showing her how to balance the camera on her knee, I let her fire off a few frames.

I had a single flash set high on the stand to camera left. Audrey directed Tamsin to sit in my lap and carefully framed the shot. This was the first image she captured. Not just the first from this session, but the first ever, as she has never used my camera before. The framing is quite good although as is often the case, one of the models decided to blink at the wrong time.

The girls quickly traded positions, and Tamsin took her spot behind the camera. Again, I was somewhat astonished at how accurately these initial images were framed. These files are straight out of the camera with no cropping or other adjustments, and I let each girl dictate how the other would be sitting or interacting with me in the final composition.

It has been both an honor and a privilege for me to be an instructor and mentor to so many aspiring photographers over the years. But the recent interest my daughters have shown in developing their own visual style is on an entirely new level for me. Every day I am amazed at how quickly they learn what seem to be quite complex and difficult tasks. And this in turn has rekindled my passion for both the art of photography and my desire to share the tools of the creative process with others.

Once again, the photo opportunities were endless in the Mission district this past weekend for the annual Carnaval street fair and parade. Sunday morning dawned gray and overcast, so I added a couple of Nikon Speedlights to my kit for the day. The wireless Speedlight Commander mode built into the Nikon D700 is perfect for this kind of shooting, allowing me to add an extra touch of light to heighten the contrast and add drama to the street scenes. Handholding one of the the Nikon SB 800 strobes in my left hand, with the camera in my right, allowed me to instantly adjust the angle and balance of the light for the constantly moving subjects, and the fully automatic TTL settings rarely missed an exposure.

For these shots the flash system was set to the high-speed FP sync mode to allow shutter speeds up to 1000 the second. I usually tend to shoot in manual mode when using external flashes, but in this case, things were changing too fast so the TTL mode was welcome. These dancers were part of the African tribute group marching in the parade, dressed in very colorful and authentic costumes. All of these images were captured during the early morning set-up along Bryant St. Shooting before the parade starts brings us up close and personal with the performers, and an extra bonus was discovering that one of my former students was a member of this group.

I had a lot of fun out and about early for the pre-parade shoot. But as the parade kicked into high gear, the hard work was just starting. My gear went back into the bag, and I met up with my family. My daughter Audrey climbed onto my shoulders for the next hour and a half for the best vantage point in the Mission.

Robert Ash got started in photography serendipitously. As a young man in Kansas City, Missouri, Robert purchased a Minolta XG7. Early experiments led him into fashion photography, and he began working with a fashion designer and his wife as a partner. In 1979 they all moved west.

Upon arriving in San Francisco, Robert shot portraits, landscapes, and fashion. Meanwhile he completed school at UC Berkeley (computer science) and Stanford (MBA). Even now as the product manager for a major software company, he’s able to continue his passion for photography.

By 2003 Robert had gone digital. A Mamiya RZ67 Pro II film camera only saw one roll of film before being retired, eclipsed by a series of prosumer digital cameras. Currently Robert’s shooting with a Nikon D300.

“The main thing I like about digital is not having to mess with chemicals anymore,” says Robert. “ Also having more direct feedback through the LCD screens, and a much richer range of photographic manipulation that you can do on your own.”

A year ago Robert began taking courses at Future Light. The skills he learned with FLDW helped Robert achieve new levels in his photography career.

“FLDW’s courses, taught by the top industry experts, gave me a broad, deep foundation. I learned techniques and tricks-of-the-trade in days that would have taken months or years to learn on my own,” says Robert. “More importantly, FLDW taught me what makes the tools tick under the covers, and a systematic approach that makes it easier now for me to learn new techniques from any source.”

He’s since joined NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) and maintains an active portfolio on PBase.com.  He’s expanding into wedding photography and selling his prints, which you can see at the Bank of Alameda lobby among other collections.

Robert Ash was recently included in leading photographer David Saffir’s directory of top photographers, designers and consultants. Fine-art digital print master Jack Duganne commented that Robert “has a penchant for panorama and the moment which is very striking”.

Robert told FLDW after a recent HDR class, “Your class opened my eyes to how truly worthwhile HDR photography is as its own discipline and saved me untold time trying to figure out the specifics of what relevant controls do and how best to use them”.

You may view Robert’s portfolio online at: www.pbase.com/robertash.
One in an ongoing series about the spectrum of FLDW clients.

Q:
I’m using a polarizing filter on my DSLR and I’m getting vignetting of my images. Is that normal and what can I do about it? I’ve been cropping the photos but it’s not a satisfactory solution.

A:
Yes, some thicker filters can contribute to vignetting. Use a low profile filter, such as the B&W “slim” series when you’re shopping for a new filter. It will cause far fewer problems with vignetting.

In the meantime, if you’re using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, the Vignette Correction tool is extremely useful in this situation.
- Brad Polt-Jones, FLDW

What’s your experience with this situation?