Just say NO, to a MacBook Pro

Just say NO, to a MacBook Pro, at least for now. Apple offers great products with a simple, intuitive OS that includes plenty of useful software to perform most of the tasks we buy computers for. They generally cost a premium over similarly specs PC’s but after you see what you are getting you start to think, “okay, expensive but worth it!” plus every user I know says, "once with a mac you never go back (to a PC)”. So why do I write, ‘just say NO…’ Well, since the launch in 2006 of the MBP refreshes to the line came about every 8 months with a pattern of October, June, February, October…. Those that follow Apple pricing know that unlike all other technology companies, the prices listed on the day of launch remain constant up to the final day of sales. This means that customers get the best bang for the buck by purchasing at the beginning of the product cycle and start getting ripped-off prices towards the end. We are now well overdue at 9 months for MBP refresh with no tangible update rumors in sight. Apple seems to be the only company that does not offer the latest turbo boosted Arrandale processors in their laptops and are charging last years prices for last year’s technology. With the falling prices of RAM and chips Apple is making about $300 additional profit on a MBP today vs early June 2009 when they last refreshed the line. For example, want to upgrade from 4GB of RAM to 8GG, Apple will charge a $600 premium. Instead you can buy two – 4GB (total 8GB ram) for about $350 and upgrade yourself and keep the original 4GB.

Apple tends to make announcement of new products on Tuesdays. Today is Tuesday but not today, March 9th, 274 days into the average 230-day cycle. Perhaps next Tuesday, or the next, or next month… Some think that Apple will not refresh the line until after iPad is shipping and the whole world wants one. This may be true and if so it is a insult, IMO, to their customers. For many, like myself, a computer is first and foremost a tool as opposed to a toy. Smart consumers try to invest in the right tool for the job within their budget. I want a powerful laptop that can be hooked up to a quality monitor for photography. An iPad is a different tool and cannot possibly distract me from what I actually need as a professional. Is it that the company cannot walk and chew gum at the same time? Of course not, it is seems more like that the company thinks consumers can’t.

If the marketing genius’s at Apple believe that updated laptops will confuse people into not buying an iPad then why not adjust prices for last years technology down a bit – like everyone else. The market for new MBP’s include those like myself that are using old and slow P4 processors and anxious to make a switch from PC’s to something like a i5-540 processor that is 2.53Ghz and boosts 20% up to 3.06 Ghz with hyper-threading technology because of performance needs. It also includes existing Apple customers whose current laptops are under performing relative to their needs, and those whose computers are old and dieing out. Sure, they can buy a brand new MBP for the price of two similarly specked PC’s, and Apple would love this because again, their profits are inflated since the product, like its price, is now over 9 months. Apples best selling laptop in their 13” MPB which starts at $1200 and includes a 2.26Ghz C2D CPU, 160GB 54000 drive, and a meager 2GB Ram (no dedicated graphics card is included). A 15” MBP upgraded to a 2.8Ghz C2D with 8Gb ram and a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive with anti-glare screen is $3000 (okay $2,999 before tax). You can buy a much more powerful desktop and laptop combo for that price which includes the latest and greatest processors.

Bottom line, Apple products are cool and people love them. But, apple is incredibly greedy and currently the biggest technology laggard with the highest profits (they own 90% of the over $1,000 desktop market - good new for stockholders, not so much for consumers). If you want a new Macbook Pro wait. Tuesdays are the most likely time for a refresh and in the past month many at macrumors.com have labeled it, “Disappointment Tuesday.” Hopefully it will be worth the extended wait and hopefully it will be ‘next Tuesday’. The longer they wait the more profit they make, and the less value its customers realize.

Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park on Mt Desert Island along the coast of Maine is one of my favorite places for landscape photography. It’s relatively small, about ¼ the size of the Great Smoky Mountains, making it easy to get around. But don’t let its compact size fool you; this area is loaded with plenty shooting opportunities including the ocean, shorelines, lakes, mountains, fog, lighthouse, harbors, and sunrise and sunset opportunities. As a matter of fact, Cadillac Mountain, the tallest mountain on the east coast, is the first place in the United States the sun strikes each morning making a sunrise shoot a very special experience.

Acadia’s landscape is a result of glaciation. Go back about 15,000 years and you will find this area covered by a mountain of ice over two miles high. The glacial advance and retreat resulted in carving out and later exposing the granite base rock unlike the well-covered mountains and hills we see in southern regions of the east. The hard material plucked from mountains at the base of the advancing and retreating glaciers is responsible for cutting deep groves in the local rocks running more or less north south. These groves work well for landscapes since they act as strong leading lines, which get nicely exaggerated when creating low-to-the-ground wide-angle compositions. As huge tongues of ice retreated they carved out valleys creating places like Eagle Lake, a great place to shoot colorful reflections in the fall when the light is right. Also, deep depressions from huge blocks of ice left behind from the glaciers are responsible for creating ‘kettle lakes’ like Jordon Pond and Bubble Pond, both Acadia icons.

The weather is Acadia can change rapidly and since the mountains meet the ocean fog is common and often welcomed by landscape photographers. The trouble is that you may get up and out very early for a sunrise shoot on a mountain top and just when the fireball is ready to break at the horizon a wall of fog can descend upon on you without notice. Yes, it has happened to me. Other local features include the rocky ocean shoreline, which has its own allure. When the tides are right you can do some interesting work with a neutral density filter for long exposures to create an ethereal look with the water – without the need for Photoshop plugins.

The nearby town, Bar Harbor, is small but very pleasant area to just walk around with plenty of places to eat, including fresh ice cream and seafood (I hate fish). In town you can also book a short cruise on one of many of the ships or schooners, rent a bicycle, or go kayaking. The five islands off Bar Harbor are iconic and best viewed from one of the nearby mountains like Cadillac. If you are in good shape and into hiking you can take a light kit, often a wide-angle zoom is enough, and see the sights from high above by taking one of the mountains trails. I only recently got into this and my last trip I hiked up Gorham, North Bubble and South Bubble Mountains. The views are fantastic and I am kicking myself for not exploring these off-road locations sooner. On future trips I have a list of new mountains to hike to add even more wonderful images to my portfolio of this lovely place. I conduct landscape workshops in Acadia the spring and fall and I hope you will join me in the future. You can see some of my work from this small, but beautiful, national park here.

Blizzard in Central Park, NYC

As many know we had blizzard in New York City this week. Since these conditions are about as good as it gets to capture Snow Monkeys and Snow Leopards playing in the snow I decided to make the trek from New Jersey to the Central Park Zoo. As I approached the Zoo I was very happy since there was plenty of snow already fallen and large flakes where now coming down strong. Sadly, the city decided to close the zoo. Although extremely angry and disappointed, it took me 2 ½ hours to get there, I simply walked around the Central Park with my camera as the weather got worse and was able to capture some good snow landscapes.

For shooting the park I used my Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 on my D300 with a protective filter and hood. To best capture to cold feel of this winter blizzard I set my white balance to Sunlight. Sunlight WB setting does not correct for light color and thus records the true color, which is not necessarily what our brains auto white balance sees. Under these conditions there is a light blue cast and blue allows the viewer to see and feel cold which is critical to communicate these extreme conditions.

For those that know the area I started out walking down Poets Walk where I was able to shoot several snowy statues of famous poets, including Shakespeare, and even the statue of Balto, the famous sled dog that relayed antitoxins 660 miles across Arctic blizzards from Nenana to Nome in the winter of 1925 – the route is now known as the Iditerod. As the snow picked up I walked to Bethesday Fountain area, around the lake and back past the fields nears Tavern on the Green. My camera got soaked and snow constantly fell inside my lens hood and needed to be periodically removed but you have to expect that in a blizzard. Although I was not able to shoot my intended subjects the trip was productive and even fun. You can see some of pictures of Central Park in the Snow in this gallery.

Shooting Tips for Winter

Many nature or landscape photographers consider the shooting season to be spring and fall. In spring waterfalls typically run stronger and wildflowers are popping up everywhere while fall shooting is known for it’s a palette of warm foliage colors. These are great times to be out shooting but what about winter? The cold weather and barren deciduous trees are not the best inducement for going outdoors, but then again, winter offers some of the most spectacular photographic opportunities of the year allowing you to add something special to your portfolio that few others have. Snowy captures, whether landscapes or wildlife, are just special, period. So here are a few things to consider before you plan to hunker down for the winter:

1) Winter offers the best light and shooting schedules of the year, especially well north or south of the equator. The days are shorter and the overall quality of the light is at its best since the trajectory of the sun is less straight up and down than summer. Even on the clearest days the light takes longer to get too hot to shoot extending magic hour opportunities. Depending on how far you are from the equator you might find you can shoot most of the day without the light getting overly contrasty, allowing a more productive day.

2) As you know the position of the sun changes everyday rising furthest to the right and setting furthest to the left on the winter solstice. The suns position can make or break a composition so knowing what time of the year the sun rises and sets in a key location allows for some uniquely distinctive compositions – see sunset series from the Empire State Building article.

3) Winter landscapes are just special when everything works. Snow covered trees and mountains, frozen or near frozen rivers and waterfalls, ice crystals, and if you are lucky you may be able to capture snow falling. The rules for shooting in the winter are the same as the summer so you don’t need special filters or other equipment. You should be looking at everything from wide-angle grand vistas to close-ups of interesting ice formations, and long lens landscape extractions to long exposures of moving water. Of course nothing beats a good winter wildlife capture, especially in falling snow.

4) Series: Consider a winter landscape as part of a series of images captured at the same place but different time of the year. If you have a favorite place or favorite tree, or vantage point you love, try capturing it in all four seasons as well as different light and weather conditions.

5) Explore local opportunities like a nearby park, lake, or even the zoo. Zoos are not crowded in winter and some animals thrive in the cold like Siberian tigers, snow leopards and snow monkeys – planning a trip to the zoo when it is snowing can yield some really cool wildlife captures. Whenever I hear about a snowstorm coming my way I try to get out and shoot snow monkeys at the zoo or something else that is interesting local compositions.

Tips:

1) Cooler white balance settings preserve the look and feel of cold. Use a cooler, i.e., lower temperature settings like Sunlight or lower instead of Cloudy to capture a mood or the feeling of cold. A bluish tint can work great for B&W captures. Warm tones for icy captures are often incongruent and don’t work as well. This is this is just a guideline, not a rule, but often the missing element of winter pictures.

2) Shutter Speed when snowing is critical. Too fast and you may not capture the flecks of falling snowflakes, especially smaller flakes, and longer shutter speeds can often capture some nice streaks. Try different speeds to find one that works for a specific composition and weather. No one shutter speed will universally work since it depends on how hard it is snowing, the size of the flakes, and the focal length you are using. Long lens have a smaller FOV and thus capture streaks differently than wide lenses for the same speed since the rate of movement across the composition will differ.

3) Try using Manual Exposure when shooting snow. If the light is constant, especially on overcast or snowing days, it is often much better to manually expose. The reason is that relative amounts of snow vs. dark areas in the composition can trick your camera meter. For example, if you are shooting an environmental portrait of a bison in the snow and then zoom in to made the bison dominate the composition, your camera may meter very differently even though the light is the same. If the light is soft then just find that sweet spot for exposure, then set it and forget it – but don’t forget to check your histogram occasionally.

4) When out in the cold for extended periods with your gear do not bring everything directly inside. Instead either keep your bag completely zipped up or put you bag in a larger plastic trash bag and let it sit inside for a few hours to warm up. If you don’t then you risk getting condensation on your gear.

5) Dress right in the cold. Wool socks, good boots, warm hat, and gloves with fingertips exposed so you can work your gear. Hand and feet warmers, which can be found in most sporting goods stores, can also be a good idea in extreme conditions

I have been fortunate to shoot in places like Yellowstone and Alaska in the dead of winter with temperatures as low as 20F without the winter chill factor, and up to –45F with the wind chill. I can say without hesitation that these, and a few other winter shoots, were some of the most rewarding experiences I have had and yielded some of my best stuff. Don’t just take your camera and hibernate for the winter, get out and shoot something special that will separate your work from others. Here is a portfolio of some of my favorite winter landscapes. Enjoy.

Sunset Series from the Empire State Building

For my first shoot of 2010 I wanted something special and decided to shoot a sunset series from the top of the Empire State Building, the former king of the skyscrapers. Actually, this shoot was planned long ago for this time of the year simply because that is when I knew the sun is in the best position for a balanced composition from this vantage point. (Note; the sun sets furthest left on Dec 21st, the winter solstice, and sets furthest right on June 21st, the summer solstice.) My goal for his shoot, which was very much pre-visualized and well planned, was to capture magic hour (30 minutes before and after sunrise or sunset) from the top New York City’s oldest icon.

As you probably know, pre-visualization is a result of seeing the picture in your minds eye before you go out to shoot it. It often requires planning and for this shoot that planning was all finding my window of opportunity including best time of year for the suns position, time of day, and weather conditions. I looked up the time of year when the sun will be in the position I want for this vantage point. I also waited for the ideal weather conditions - a clear day with not to heavy winds (strong winds this high make it tricky to get sharp handheld captures), and ideally a day outside of the holiday crowds. Knowing the conditions needed I simply wait until everything is right. It is a short shoot but even though this is not too far from home, it is still costly. Parking at the train station in my town, train tickets, and tickets to the top of the Empire State building cost close to $50, not too mention a half-day of time – but the view…

As for the equipment and technique, I used my Nikon D300 and fisheye lens for this series. I had to find the one spot at the top that allowed me to use a lens with a 180 degree field of view and not include the side of the building. I actually had to hold the camera outside the holes in the fence and perfectly align everything, which can be very tricky, especially after dark. I tilted the fisheye lens slightly up to capture the curve of the earth and also composed to place the horizon in the center of the frame to get a more normal looking landscape. For the finished post processed composition I cropped a little off the top to get a more balanced picture. Since the exposure range is greater than the dynamic range of my camera I needed to do hand held HDR’s. The get the sharpest captures with minimal movement from exposure to exposure I shoot in burst mode and adjust the ISO as needed, in this case it ranged from ISO 200 to 2200. Aperture size ranged from f/19 to create a sunstar, to f/3.3 to get plenty of light after sunset. I bracketed one stop above, normal, and one stop below for an extra 2 stops of range. White Balance was set at sunlight to preserve the blue in the sky while capturing the warm glow from the thick New Jersey air near the horizon. However, I also cooled some of the night shots since city streetlights are sodium vapor lamps and similar to tungsten lighting in color. Processing was done in Photomatix and punched up in CS4 including Topaz DeNoise3 to remove high ISO and HDR processing noise. The result was a series of about seven captures from 15 minutes before sunrise to 50 minutes past. Incidentally, if you go about 25 miles from where this shot was taken in the direction of sunset, that’s where I live.

You can see the magic hour series in my NYC Sunrise & Sunset gallery. Enjoy.

How far have you come?

It’s the New Year, the time when many of us make our “New Years Resolutions” by setting new goals for the coming year. It is also a time to look back and see how far we have come with respect to the goals made last year. With regards to my photography, I have an ongoing goal of improvement. I strive to be better this year than last, and better next year than today. I measure my progress through questions like, have I learned any new capture or post processing techniques to create new or better looks? Is my ability to plan and previsualize even better now then a year ago? Am I experimenting with something new and gaining a better understanding of how and when to use it? Am I following the pack or going my own way? These are some of the benchmarks I use to gauge my progress in the ongoing quest to be a better photographer and create better and better pictures. I say picture not photo since I believe photography is an art and not simply a method of documenting the world around us – let the photojournalists do that. Our capture and post processing skills along with artistic license give us a means to create different versions of a capture and the resulting picture is a result of ones personal vision or preference limited by his or hers imagination and digital darkroom skills.

One tangible way to of ‘seeing’ how far your photography has come is to create a folder or web gallery that includes your best or favorites of the past year. It can be your top 10, top 25 or top 100, (10 might be too few and 100 might be too many but you get the idea). It can include your best pictures of the year or instead a few of your best for each location or event, or simply the best of each genre you shoot like sunsets, waterfalls, buildings, portraits, animals… Selecting and reviewing your best or favorite work is a great way to measure your progress and take pride in your accomplishments plus it gives you a tangible benchmark for next year to compare back to. I know that some of my pictures I took years ago that I considered great at the time are now below my current standard either in composition or the post processed end result. At or around New Year’s Day is great time to see how far you have come, define your strengths and weaknesses, and set personal goals for improvement in the coming year. Strive for progress not perfection and you will rarely be disappointed.

Happy New Year and remember, if you don’t get older and wiser, then you just get older. BTW, here are some of my favorites of 2009.

The Value of Checklists

“He’s making a list and checking it twice…” Most of us know this line from the song, Santa Clause Is Coming To Town, but do you have your lists ready to check when you’re going out of town??? Lists are an insurance policy to make sure you have everything you need and/or everything is set where you expect it. Have you ever done a shoot and later realized your camera was set to ISO 1600 when ISO 200 would have been perfect? Have you ever left for a long trip and forgot extra batteries or a your charger? Did you ever shoot everything with the wrong white balance setting? If you haven’t done something like this then chances are you have some sort of checklist.

Early in my career I traveled frequently around the country and I quickly learned how to pack by using a mental checklist before I left for any trip. I would start at the feet and work my way up. Do I have enough shoes, socks, slacks, underwear, belts shirts, ties, and jackets for the number of days of the trip plus one extra set for emergencies. I still use that mental checklist for clothes as well as a mental checklist to reset my camera controls after a shoot, and I also use a written checklist for my gear. This ensures that I have everything I need and am ready to go.

My camera and lens ‘mental’ checklist, for when I am finished shooting includes; ISO set at 200, Aperture set at f/5.6, Exposure Compensation at 0, Mode is Aperture Priority, Flash is at TTL, Focus is in Single Servo Mode, VR (OS or IS) is always Off, Focus Limit Switch - ON, also, whenever I change a lens I also make sure the camera is Off and VR is Off. White Balance is at either Sunlight or Auto (Sunlight records the actual color of the light while Auto ideally compensates for it.) Generally one or the other white balance settings is best when I am finished for the day and not sure what I might shoot next. If I will be shooting in the same light on and off the entire day then I may leave WB set for what is working that day but I always set it back to Auto or Sunlight before packing up for the day. These are my base settings, the settings I assume about my gear when I pick it up, and the setting I make sure I return it to when I am finished - no exceptions. What works for you may be different.

For trips or events I have a printed checklist I go through and physically check off as I pack my gear. The list is broken down in categories like Lenses, filters, cables, lighting… Also on the list includes snacks, maps, set the DVR, adjust the thermostat, hold mail… I may not need everything on the list but having a list and checking it twice is a way to make sure my shoot will be nice. I know, that was bad but hopefully bad enough to remember. Making a habit of using lists is that ounce of prevention that is worth a pound of cure.