Cautionary Tale

People wonder why I started to put watermarks on my pictures that I post both here and in FB, the above movie is the reason why. In 2007 I took many pictures of all of the Warren Blue Demons Cheering competition. I also made many discs for parents of their daughters. All of this was done at an agreeable price. Free.

I was doing a routine search of Warren Cheer photos recently as I keyworded this years and I discovered the above YouTube Video. I just gave it a casual glance, but I immediately recognized the photo that was it's thumbnail. It was mine and it looked awful. Somebody in their effort to share photos of the Warren Cheer groups decided to put something together and share with other parents. Thankfully my work is not credited. The awful pixalated transfer just makes me cringe. I think of it as child abuse in some way. Sad thing is I would have shared the photos if asked and the the time spent would have been worth so much more. I would have asked for credit at the end of the video, but that would have been a small price to pay I think.

If you share your photos and videos online they will be stolen, expect it and do what you can.

View from the Road

 

I will admit when I started this job to really enjoying my life on the road. Having grown up somewhat sheltered in my small Michigan town, the thought of traveling to many places throughout the Midwest WAS exciting. What I longed for in those early days was the airline trips. Each time I packed my bag and was headed to the airport it was truly an adventure. Though I will admit exotic locations such as Atlanta, Cleveland and Spartanburg do not seem to head up everyone’s locations under exotic, it all was an adventure to me. In those early days I was given over to the road and driving. Logging sometimes 50,000 miles in a year behind the wheel and only seeing an airport for personal vacations and the twice yearly trip to Atlanta for training or a sales meeting.

The world and our group has gotten smaller since then. With especially the second one changing each part of our group and how I work. We have gone from 10 to 4. That means less car rides and more plane rides. It also means a few less stays in hotels and many more frequent flyer miles. This must be even more exciting to my eyes you might think.

In those early years when we got together in sales meetings I would hear the grizzled sales veteran say how difficult the travel was and I had to stretch to believe their stories. You board a plane and 2 hours sometimes less sometimes more you are someplace outside of the Midwest and not behind the wheel anymore. The topography is different, the weather is different and sometimes-even people look different.

Now I am the grizzled vet and know the terminals of some airports by heart. I know the short cuts through Atlanta and O'Hare. Where the Gold Star Chili is in Cincinnati. I know too many 3-letter airport names. I know when I'm going to eat healthy and I know where I am not. I know pretty much where the TCBY's are; I can even name a few of the people that have helped me at some airports. I've drunk too much OJ on flights and too many Delta cookies. Mostly I opt for the peanuts. I'm away more than I'm home I find the mattresses better at hotels than my own and those chocolates can be quite tasty if savored properly at the Ritz-Carlton.

The good part is what I see, the customers I contact and where I go. Do I have complaints, well yes we all do with what we do, but mostly when I step off that plane even when I'm tired and caught an evening flight to catch my son or daughter in some school function or just put them on the bus to get to school in the morning. I want to be there. I'm happy to be there and I want to help the customers who have entrusted the company I work for with their business. I miss my family, but this is what I do. The stuff at home, I hope I do better, but that next baggie of peanuts will make a nice snack, Oh and can you top of my OJ and add some ice please?



Picture taken with my iPhone at some airport somewhere.

Recent photo shoot

Some will remember my photo shoot of a good friends new child recently. She did such a nice job of combining the photos together for her announcement that I thought I would share it here.

My Photo Backup Solution:

I have been asked may times what do I do in case of a disaster to keep my images safe. This very situation came close to happening recently. We just moved my office down to the basement to make a bedroom available for my daughter. During a recent thunderstorm a drain got backed-up and water started collecting behind the door leading to a stairwell. Pretty soon there was roughly 800 gallons of water residing outside the door with only one way of relief, into the office on the other side!

Thankfully when we built the office we had everything built on risers, but there were other considerations to meet as well. There was important data residing on the hard drives inside the Mac Pro system. For that any water could be a disaster. Thankfully I had my Backup system already in place some months before and as I saw the water rushing in I knew more than likely my images and other precious data would be safe.

My first run images reside on a 1TB hard drive inside of Mac Pro. I then do a Time Machine Backup to a Drobo that resides on my desk. A Drobo has the ability to backup data and Mirror it so if one of the drives fail your precious data is still safe. In this case since it is a Time Machine Backup if I accidentally delete a file I can go back and grab an earlier version of the file that is still in the Time Machine.

I wanted at least two data points for my images though and so there is also an older NAS that I have set up to Backup this same drive keeping 30 days worth of changes in a separate folder. That way I can go back and collect any files that I feel I might need. So there I have two points of backup. The bad part, they are both on my desk. Sure they are on opposites sides of my desk AND connected via different electrical outlets. This didn't give me much comfort when there was 4 inches of water already on the grown and 800 gallons outside of my door waiting to enter.

What did though was my off site backup to Backblaze. For $5 a month I can upload all of the data that I want from a single computer. Now the initial backup took me 60 days on my present connection. After that is done the uploads take much less time and it can be even scheduled to do it in the evenings only. What would have been more effective would be to have a backup solution another house reach out and download the pictures instead of an upload, but that will be for a later design.

As I looked at the water pouring in, I knew that not only did I have two points of backup that would have to fail, I also had one off-site. With gallons of water all around electronic equipment that sure did give me some comfort that I wouldn't lose everything.

What is your backup solution?

ScanCafe Update

You see above another follow-up from my ScanCafe project. The emails have been pretty consistent recently. As you can see from above the give you a very nice visual update on what part of the process your images are at. Also the key to this page is to then track your order.

After I logged myself into their website I found exactly where my images were located at in their processing facility. Very nice touch! More updates as the product moves through their system.

Photograph what is around you: Photo of the Day

I was on on a recent trip to Ohio and the birding hotspot Magee Marsh to photograph migrating warblers. For those that aren't aware when you arrive at the wildlife refuge you follow the road all the way back to just along the Lake Erie shoreline. You will see a large parking lot and then signs for the boardwalk trail. During migratory seasons you will also see 100s of birders and photographers. During my recent trip there I fell in more with the photographers as you might expect.

Since this was my first experience photographing small birds and a warbler is very small compared to my winter bald eagle activity. Because of this I fussed quite a bit over which equipment to use. I settled on The Nikon 300 AFD with a Better Beamer and the D3 and D300 bodies. I did have mounted on a tripod the Nikon 600 AFS. Since the birds moved quite a bit and never seemed to stay in one place for any amount of time, the 600 was difficult to manuever. The boardwalk isn't very wide once you open the legs of the tripod so there is the chance of a tripping hazard or worse the camera tipping over hazard. With a D3 and a Nikon 600mm that is not something that I cared to watch or have happen.

Most of the good shots I got was with my older AF version of the Nikon 300 f/4. I might next year want to bring the 200-400 AFS with a TC. I may also want to move my equipment to a monopod because that will allow me to be mobile which I found to be very important as the birds jump in and out of the trees and move around quite readily.

I once again found the best photos to be taken with the D3 over the D300. This was not just the full fram photos, but even when cropped. I can only say that this is my experiance and yours may vary. I was also not pleased with the focusing speed of the older Nikon AF 300 f/4. AFS has really spoiled me and there isn't much room for error with birds that are able to move and twitch while on the branch that fast.

The above photo is taken of an amish family that came to do some bird watching at Magee Marsh. I found their outfits very photogenic and since there was some free time between birds I snapped a number of pictures of them. I also got some candids of people around me whose expressions I found interesting. Though I have never been a "street photographer" I did find this foray into street photography somewhat interesting, especially since I had birds as a backup.

ScanCafe Photo Scanning Update: Photo of the Day

As an update to my previous post on using ScanCafe from previous blog post.  A few days after my negatives arrived I received the following update from them.  Since all of these pictures were family memories it was a welcomed update to let me know that they had receive them and that they weren't lost in transit.  Of course I had been checking the UPS site for their arrival and already was aware.

I also received another email recently that said they were going to be upping their prices on July 15.  They were giving a 10% discount code to beat the price increase.  Business must be good if they are increasing prices.  I almost accepted this deal because as loyal readers might recall I have 2-3 more batches of negatives that need to be turned into digital images and getting 10% off and avoiding a price increase is usually pretty high on my list. 


In the end I held off because I want to see the quality of the scans before I send more negatives to this type of service.  I also am still a little uncomfortable with having more than one batch of negatives out of my possession and in someone elses. 


I'll keep every posted as I get more updates.

Catherine Stout: Photo of the Day

Catherine Stout: Photo of the Day, originally uploaded by BCMielke.

I had the opportunity to photograph a good friends newborn baby. This is always an exciting time for a couple. Jeff , Carrie and now Catherine Frances Stout were kind enough to give me a couple of hours of their time to get the pictures that I needed. Newborns can always be a problem at times, but Cati was a joy to work with never fussing until of course she was hungry and not bothering at all with the multiple flash pops that were going off. I enjoyed my time and hopefully got a few pictures that the couple will have lasting memories with.

There was a point when Carrie let me hold Cati. Most who read this know that my children are a little bit older than a baby. I asked her if Kate had put her up to this? She said, "Not at all" Now I don't know if I believe this little exchange didn't happen and my wife was mum about any contact between the two. What I do know was that it was pretty nice having a baby in my arms again and wondering what the future might hold for her.

Does this look illegal?: Photo of the Day

Does this look illegal?, originally uploaded by BCMielke.

You wouldn't think this looks illegal. I guess it is at Bloomingdales. As my wife was trying on dresses to go to a show and dinner for our anniversary. I took this time to sharpen some photography skills and to look for more dresses. I liked how the colors were so dramatic in my viewfinder. I was able to take about 6-7 pictures before a person asked me to stop saying that they did not allow shooting in Bloomingdales.

As regular readers might recall I had the same problem in a spice store awhile back and they emailed me when a reader pointed out what I had written. One would think they woudln't like the negative press. Now instead of a picture with a comment about how nice of a place Bloomingdales is to purchase dresses at, they are stuck with this.

Getting Focus right: Photo of the Day

Getting Focus right: Photo of the Day, originally uploaded by BCMielke.

Technically I could complain alot about this photo. I'll keep it to focus. Well I changed my mind. I wish I had seperated the two flowers on the lower right a little as well.

When I took this photo I was trying to isolate the front tulip from the other two to give me sharp focus on the front and have the others fade into the background bokeh. That didn't happen though. It started to rain, the wind picked up and guess what the photo doesn't really work like I wanted to. Despite 7 pictures I never really paid attention to the one detail that would have made it work a steady tripod and a stationary subject. I could have re-did this photo many times over the next week and this was one I never got back to. Get it right the first time and you don't have to.

Nikon D700 Nikkor 200 F/2 Converted in Aperture

Folding Reflectors and Backgrounds

I always am forgetting how to fold my backgrounds. This will help me remember and I figure others might find it helpful as well.

LensAlign Pro: Achieving Lens Alignment

Will LensAlign Pro offer a simpler and more efficient product against others that are available for lens alignment?


Recently I rented a lens from LensRentals.com. I wanted to try out the Nikon 14-24 against the wide angle I already own the Sigma 12-24 to see if there was a significant difference in quality between the two lenses. Though this review won’t be about the above comparison, I can say that the 14-24 is a much better lens; I did not find it to be 3x better than the Sigma. If you just look at cost that is what you would expect. Of course that doesn’t mean I won’t purchase it at some point in the future.

I have looked on and off at doing lens to body calibrations. I have tried multiple different sites to see how each method would perform. Each time I came away disappointed in the reproducibility of each of these techniques. Despite many glowing comments, I never was overly pleased with the results enough to keep the calibration data active in each of my DSLRs. I always turned it off after a period of usage and comparing images and not being satisfied that the level of sharpness was what I demanded.

This might change.

When the LensAlign Pro was announced I was quick to be interested in such a device that seemingly could take a lot of the guesswork out of the lens/body calibration voodoo. With a positive review from Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape and listening to the Image Doctors also have success using this device I was all set to purchase it some months ago. Then I saw the price. At $139 it is quite pricey for something that won’t be used more than twice a year so I held off. There is a lower priced model, but I had not read as much positive press about this model. I would want a device that was easy to use and accurate. The LensAlign Lite I read was accurate, but not as easy to use.

In browsing the LensRental.com site I was able to discover that I could rent a LensAlign Pro for one week for $15. The shipping from LensRental.com is the same regardless of how many items you rent. So it was a no-brainer to just add this to my cart.

I have spent the last week checking and re-checking each of the settings on my digital cameras. Since I have 3 of them this can take some time. One thing I have learned is that I really need to trim the number of lenses that I do have down to a manageable number. Well, maybe later. After all of this testing here are my impressions.

The unit works and does the job very well. I consistently was able to re-calibrate with each of my lenses and received for my efforts a result that was within 1 or 2 of what I originally calibrated it at. I don’t believe there are any units associated with the numbers under AF Fine Tune so there isn’t any way to know how far your focus was off.

In my testing I didn’t see any consistent results between camera and lens combinations. Each changed with each separate camera/lens combination. An 85 f/1.8 on my D3 had different settings on my D700 and D300. Sometimes there was positive change needed an on another lens/camera combination there might be negative. After my testing I did some comparisons and it did seem in every case that there was improvement in the lens. The LensAlign Pro did it’s job and seemingly very well.

The downside of this product is the lack of instructions. There was a brief one-page document included with the set-up. I can only say that some trees were wasted for that brief of an instruction manual. There also were some videos that helped me to get started. A little trial and error later and I felt I had a streamlined system. Once I got that, the testing went very fast. For the price of this product I would have expected an instruction manual either online or enclosed in a CD-ROM.


Another important part of this process was also neglected by the lack of a instruction manual. There wasn’t any idea on how close to the LensAlign Pro should I try to focus the lens? From reading other sites there seemed to a contentious of 2.5 to 3x the focal length of the lens. Upon searching the website discussion group that was also the common thought here as well. I will say that though I did not ask a question it appears that the manufacturer is quite active in the forums. My suggestion if you don’t naturally figure things out quickly, I would ask your questions there and I suspect you will get help pretty quickly.

I have included some before and after pictures of a calibration that I did with my 70-200 on my Nikon D3. The AF Fine Tune used in this case was +5. As can be seen from the 100% crops of these photos there is a difference in how “sharp” the photo is with even this small of a change. You also will see included some photos of the LensAlign Pro properly set-up and one not. Though this may sound a little difficult, the nice feature of the LensAlign Pro is the ability to get behind the unit and center the camera in the center hole to help in the alignment. After I figured this little detail out the alignment went much faster.

Despite the shortcomings of the instructions I did find this product to work and work well. It was much faster than any of the other utilities that I discovered on the web and I felt confident at the end that the information that was generated was accurate for that lens/camera body. For my taste it is still a tad high in price for what I would pay to own this type of device. I will however rent it again at an appropriate time from LensRental.com to calibrate my lenses again.