Color Profile

D70, kit lens@48mm, 1/60@f/5.6, ISO 250, Built-in TTL, AWB -2, Hue -3


Been busy with shooting pictures and updating my other blogs lately. Also, spent time to test some lenses and reading up on photoshop and seeing other photogs' works.

D70, kit lens@25mm, 1/60@f/5.6, ISO 250, Built-in TTL, AWB -2, Hue -3


Digital photography is simply wonderful. For instance, previously I did not bother to switch color profile or space to sRGB when I posted pictures on the web. All my raws were shot using aRGB for the wider gamut. And since the processed jpegs looked ok on the web, I did not convert.

D70, kit lens@34mm, 1/60@f/5.6, ISO 250, Built-in TTL, AWB -2, Hue -3


That changed when I posted the photos I took in Krabi / Phuket -- the colors had a distinct green tint to them. And also the most recent series of portraits I took of Anna and her mom.

So I converted the color profile to sRGB before downsizing and uploading to the web. And the difference is perceptible.

I don't know if it is my eyes. Is it possible the eye becomes more critical with the passage of time, as the eye gets used to digital photos on the web?

Or was it due to the D70 which had its firmware updated to the latest version?

D70, 85mm f/1.4D, 1/30@f/5.6, ISO250, AWB -2, Hue -3


I had sent the camera to Nikon Service Centre in Oct 05 for a routine maintenance check before the warranty runs out in Feb 06. And the differences between aRGB and sRGB became more apparent after the servicing.

D70, 85mm f/1.4D, 1/250@f/1.4, ISO 250, AWB -2, Hue -3


D70, 85mm f/1.4D, 1/45@f/5.6, -2.0EV, ISO 250, AWB -2, Hue -3


D70, kit lens@52mm, 1/60@f/5.6, ISO 250, Built-in TTL, AWB -2, Hue -3

November Gal

Anna's birthday falls on November 17. Pictured below is her mom who flew to Singapore for a vacation and to see her favorite daughter. Both mom and daughter are very close, and enjoy travelling to places around the globe. They will visit beautiful Malacca and KL for 10 days, I think.

D70, 85mm f/1.4D, 1/30@f/5.6, ISO250, AWB -2, Hue -3


D70, 85mm f/1.4D, 1/250@f/1.4, ISO 250, AWB -2, Hue -3


D70, kit lens@25mm, 1/60@f/5.6, ISO 250, Built-in TTL, AWB -2, Hue -3



D70, kit lens@34mm, 1/60@f/5.6, ISO 250, Built-in TTL, AWB -2, Hue -3



D70, kit lens@52mm, 1/60@f/5.6, ISO 250, Built-in TTL, AWB -2, Hue -3



D70, kit lens@48mm, 1/60@f/5.6, ISO 250, Built-in TTL, AWB -2, Hue -3

Bad Day

Urrgghhh... just found that to "initialise" the HD under XP's Disk Management control panel meant to reformat... Grrr.. Why don't they use the same word ie format instead of a different term????

That's it -- all my original NEFs, including several weeks' shoots under -processing, were lost (sigh).

I was putting together a new AMD64 3000+ using Gigabyte K8NF-9 MB and 250Gb WD SATA II HD and got flustered after trying for several days to troubleshoot a keyboard problem: kb refused to work after boot-up. It worked perfectly under bios but not after boot-up. Seemed like a bios/software driver bug.

Finally found the kb issue was due to the USB mouse driver. The kb works only if the USB mouse driver is disabled in the bios.

Lesson: burn all NEFs onto backup CDs before processing.


Update:

When my son learnt of my problem, he referred me to a nifty utility tool called GetDataBack for NTFS. I was skeptical at first, as I had not only partitioned and reformatted but also started writing files to the "initialised" HD.

Hey, after trying it out, I was surprised -- gleefully surprised -- that the tool was able to help me recover ALL my lost NEFs and music files ! Obviously it took some hours -- due to some files being overwritten -- but thankfully the files that mattered, the NEFs and music files, were all intact.

Two of the NEFs recovered are shown below. More to follow later.

Friends from Sweden

I had dim sum with Anna and her boyfriend Matthias at the Crystal Jade at TSC Shopping Mall today. Both are from Sweden. Anna is doing her MBA at James Cook campus at Spring Singapore while Matthias is visiting. Both met at Ericsson, the giant Swedish electronics firm, better known as a producer of mobile phone sets.

D70, kit lens@18mm, 1/60s@f/4, ISO1250, +0.7EV, AWB -3

Don't they make a lovely couple? Seems that +0.3EV is about the max I should use as +0.7EV doesn't do much in reducing unwanted noise. For evenly lit scenes like this I should probably have gone for 0EV instead.

After lunch I went to the NLB on the Fifth Floor of TSC and borrowed 2 books about photographers and their studios. The info may be useful if I should decide to set up a studio in Melbourne in future.

D70, kit lens@18mm, 1/50s@f/5.6, ISO1600, +0.3EV, AWB -3

Wonder whether image would be sharper with the Nikkor f/2.8D 17-35mm (or 17-55mm) ?

When I left the Library, I found that it was raining. The weather was cool due to the late afternoon shower. Light was rapidly getting dimmer, and so I snapped some pictures during the walk home.

D70, kit lens@35mm, 1/60s@f/8, ISO1000, +0.3EV, AWB -3

A circular polarizer would be useful to control the reflections on the glass panel.

D70, kit lens@44mm, 1/60s@f/8, ISO720, +0.3EV, AWB -3

This one was shot at FL= 44mm, although most were below 35mm. For my next purchase, perhaps I should give more weight to the Nikkor 17-55mm over the 17-35mm? Or maybe I should consider the Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8? Best if Nikon comes out with an 18-70mm f/2 lens !!

Poetry of the Soul

When things were getting better
They just got bloody worse
And now I’m thinking to myself
I’m under Someone’s curse
I don’t know when it happened
Or what the hell I’ve done
But to this Person I’m really sorry
And say: You’ve definitely won.

For I have been to hell and back
And really felt so sick
This curse You’ve gone and put on me
Just hasn’t missed a tick
I have been cursed with my stomach
I have really been in pain
I have taken things to make me better
But things are still the same

They say I have dysreflexia
And that it happens to people my age
But I just can’t help feeling
That I’m a victim of Someone’s rage
My bladder isn’t working now
Like it used to do
And if You’re reading this poem
Is this curse down to You?

If it is, You have to know
This makes me hot and cold
I can’t sleep or eat or drink
Now I’m feeling really old

I lie awake at night just praying
That it will go away
I didn’t think this would last so long
Hoping it would be gone in a week or a day
But here I am still suffering
A condition I don’t understand
And I know no matter what I do
It is in Your hand

So I am asking, no I’m pleading
Release me from this curse
And any damage I may have caused
I will fully reimburse
I can’t take back what I’ve done
Or what I’ve gone and said
But please now have some pity
On me lying in my bed

My hands held high up in the air
I say OK You’ve had your fun
But now it's time to end this curse
For that damage is really done

This curse that I am going through
Will last with me forever
It is a storm cloud overhead
As I roll and ride this weather
But I hope to see the sunshine
And feel its warmth once more
So lift this curse You’ve put on me
For I just can’t take it any more

This really is a heartfelt plea
So I ask You and implore
What I’ve done I am truly sorry
Anything I’ve done I so regret
For You have taught me a valuable lesson
One I won't ever forget



Ian was a promising, young English lad of 17 when he had his motorcycle accident. One glance was all it took for him on that fateful day. He turned his head to glance at his friends as they passed him on their bikes. And the next thing -- he hit a stationary truck by the roadside.

Ian today is confined to his bed -- for the rest of his life. He is 36 and has been in-and-out of hospital countless times. His life always hangs by a thin thread.

Recently his condition took a turn for the worse: his latest medical crisis is a condition called dysreflexia -- a condition when his body goes into uncontrollable spasms and the blood pressure goes dangerously high due to involuntary activity of the nervous system.

Despite haivng pain as his constant bedfellow, Ian learns to keep his mind off his suffering through writing. He writes his poems on his PC keyboard -- painfully and painstakingly -- using his mouth, striking each alphabet key-by-key.

His poems are beautifully crafted -- his literary talents obvious. The words don't come from someone practiced or trained in the art of semantics or English prose. His poems often tell of his struggles with pain, anger, sadness. Sometimes self-pity.

This is poetry straight from the heart.

It is Poetry from the Soul.

You may wish to visit his website:

http://www.geocities.com/big_red_one_67/Home_Page.html

Borders

After shooting many photos under high-ISO conditions, I noticed that noise seemed to be more noticeable in dark and underexposed areas of the photo. Does this mean that if sufficient light is given to the darker parts of the scene, noise may become less noticeable?

I therefore set the D70's exposure compensation to +1.0EV (aka exposing to the right) and went to Borders at Wheelock Place to take some indoor scenes under available light conditions, shooting without flash and hand-held.

The results of my short experiment were somewhat inconclusive: noise was still noticeable in the darker areas of the photo despite the +1.0EV. Could it be that the D70's auto-exposure mode made some adjustment to over-ride and offset to some degree the +1.0EV exposure compensation, as some on the Net have suggested? If this were so it would make the D70's exposure compensation feature of limited value, wouldn't it? More experiments on exposure needed to be made to see if this is the case.

Generally, I think setting compensation to +1.0EV was a bad idea. This was because most of the time I encountered indoor situations where bright halogen and/or flourescent lighting was used to brighten up the interior. This resulted in washed out highlights that could not be recovered in pp.

Worse, I forgot all about the +1.0EV setting when I walked out of the building and continued with some street shooting, examples of which are shown in the pictures below. Really bad idea!

D70, kit lens@22mm, 1/60s@f/5.6, iso560, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@18mm, 1/160s@f/5.6, iso200, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@18mm, 1/80s@f/5.6, iso200, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@31mm, 1/60s@f/8, iso720, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@18mm, 1/50s@f/5.6, iso1600, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@18mm, 1/60s@f/5.6, iso900, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@27mm, 1/250s@f/5.6, iso200, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@29mm, 1/60s@f/5.6, iso1250, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@35mm, 1/60s@f/5.6, iso320, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@35mm, 1/60s@f/5.6, iso320, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@35mm, 1/60s@f/5.6, iso360, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@22mm, 1/60s@f/5.6, iso360, +1.0EV, AWB -3



D70, kit lens@18mm, 1/640s@f/5.6, iso200, +0.3EV, AWB -3

Workflow

Thus far I have not decided on my final workflow.

Sometimes I go the route of raw-->jpeg instead of raw-->tiffs (practicality vs quality) but pending finality my usual (tentative) workflow is:

- Copy raw files off card onto drive.
- Sort, Delete and Rename / Catalogue image files using Nikonview.
- Open selected raw files from Nikonview into NC.
- Process raw in NC for WB and USM. CA if needed. Save in TIFFs.
- Post processing in PSCS2.

In its latest iteration, I found PSCS2 now essential to any digital darkroom. Many of my photos taken under the huge dynamic range condition of the Singapore sun would not have made it, if not for the Shadow/Highlight adjustment facility provided by PSCS2. See examples.

This is the tentative conclusion reached after using the latest iteration on my recent photos. Didn't have time to reach the manual yet, as usual :D

NC is indispensable for WB adjustments and initial sharpening. WB adjustments under NC is so straight forward and easy that there is simply no other substitute software for me to adjust WB.

JPEGS vs TIFFs

Although tiff is supposed to give better results in pp due to its 16-bit mode (more bits ==> more info), I am unable to see any visible difference between JPEG and TIFF images on the screen after post-processing. For practical reasons I will probably go the route of raw-->jpegs.

Would tiff-processed files show a difference on prints? Dunno.

I have not gone into prints yet, preferring to wait for the final verdict on the Epson 4800 -- especially whether it is prone to nozzle clogging that afflicts EPSON printers. Pete Walsh in his excellent blog mentioned he has had no issue with clogging so far.

Now, if clogging is an issue, I would need to ensure I have sufficient stock of worthwhile photos to print, so that I could keep the 4800 busy printing at least once every 4~5 days (or longest interval ~ 1 week, I was told) to keep the inkflow line free of clots.

Addendum: Wait a minute! What was I thinking? Since the NEF is only a 12-bit image file, what is the point of using 16-bit tiff as storage format in the workflow? Or am I missing something? Think I will stick to jpeg henceforth.

Singapore Croissant

Hey -- what were we doing at Casuarina Road on Tuesday July 7, 2005?

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/800s@f/5.6, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2


What else -- what all Singaporeans like to do when they have some free time -- snack on the best food.

Casuarina Curry Restaurant arguably makes the best roti-prata in Singapore :

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/5.6, ISO220, +0.3EV, AWB -2


Chris was the gracious host for lunch. "More than 30 flavors" was what I overheard the waiter tell him of the roti-prata as I fiddled with my D70 trying to figure out why it couldn't focus!

And if you wonder how I could take the first 2 photos shown above when the camera couldn't focus -- simple: those were taken after lunch! By then I had found that the lens' aperture switch was unlocked, leaving the camera's auto-focus mechanism deactivated.

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/80s@f/2.8, ISO800, +0.3EV, AWB -2


Golly -- they had finished all the roti-prata before I completed taking the photos!!

Luckily there's something left on the wall. Hey, Greg, pass me some bananas..

All satiated, we had a wonderful lunch. Funny -- the best flavor for me was actually the plain old roti-prata, altho' the mushroom flavored one was yummy too.

It was still a hot, sunny day. All the people seemed to have headed for the beaches..

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/800s@f/5.6, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2


We decided to head for Greg's house. Vince and Chris were waiting for me to get into the gleaming Toyoto Camry:

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/250s@f/5.6, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2


And a Garden of Eden greeted us when we arrived at Greg's house in Lentor Avenue:

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/8, ISO560, +0.3EV, AWB -2


The beautiful multi-colored koi is worth a tidy fortune. Come back in 10 years for a wonderful koi meal, anyone? Always had deep-fried garoupa and carp with sambal blachan whenever I went to Jakarta -- simply delicious!

Not to worry, Greg -- probably not yours anymore, as you would have sold your house and moved to Perth, right?

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/400s@f/8, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2


Nice neighbourhood view from the koi pavilion in Greg's garden.

The lush growth of the plants and shrubs lend an air of tranquility to the garden:

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/125s@f/8, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2


Vince has always been a dream husband for any gal -- that is because he places top priority on pleasing his wife and kids. He is a family guy, hard-working, thrifty and an excellent dad and husband. Always dependable, I have never seen him lose his cool!

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/8, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2


Problem is, I think he tends to worry a bit too excessively -- even when he has no reason to. Maybe that's why he frowns so much.. lol

Hey Greg -- isn't that a tongkat ali growing in the background? Chris told me you got it from him to grow in your Eden some time ago.

Chris, on the other hand, is the live-wire amongst us. Never a dull moment with him around, he is always making others smile. Wanna know what he said about the melon... ??

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/720s@f/5.6, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2, no flash


Ever the generous guy that he is, Chris holds the melon 'ha-mid kuah' that he kindly bought for us to try. It is a very sweet melon imported from China.

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/5.6, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2, fill-in flash


Amongst us, Greg arguably has the sharpest intellect. He is known as an innovator, most at home with the latest geek things. Here he demos the Kodak digital camera.

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/8, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2, fill-in flash


Jack is the scholar amongst us: he likes to excel in everything he does! He is a generous, warm-hearted kind of guy, always ready to take on challenges of any kind. He revs up slowly, but like a mercedes-benz, once he is on a roll, there's no stopping him! Neither could anyone overtake him.

No wonder Jack was a 1969 Colombo Plan scholar. And today a successful engineer-businessman turned fund manager. And his engineering business? He left it to Angie, his more-than-capable wife. Lucky guy!

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/8, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2, fill-in flash


Actually all my friends are bright guys with lots of talent. All of them produced kids who also have their genes, the children either inducted into gifted-kid programs run by the government and/or subsequently winning scholarships to study uni locally or overseas.

D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/8, ISO200, +0.3EV, AWB -2, fill-in flash


I wonder if the next generation will enjoy friendship that is as long-lasting and enduring as ours is ?

Nikon AF 24mm f/2.8D Nikkor

I bought my Nikkor 24mm f/2.8D in 1994, if I recall correctly, when I bought my Nikon F90.

Then internet access was not yet widely available-- Singnet was just starting commercial operations, Pacnet undergoing trial. And getting info, especially on photography, was very difficult and time-consuming.

I therefore bought the 24mm Nikkor "blind" and without benefit of any pre-advice or knowledge of its performance. In those days people buy cameras and lenses on the strength of the brand's "reputation". And no one in my circle of photography friends tested newly bought lenses -- after all, didn't we buy a Nikkor?

Today getting info and knowledge on photography is simply a matter of joining a photography forum. Digital photography is hugely popular, spawned no doubt by a confluence of happy events: internet, weblogging, forums, dropping digicam prices, etc in a virtuous circle.

And I read that the 24mm f/2.8D Nikkor was one of the better lenses made by Nikon! Lucky for me!

However, with the Net disseminating info so rapidly now, and photographers sharing experiences with their newly bought camera and lenses, it soon dawned on everybody that buying branded stuff is not an assurance of quality. Reports have emerged on several forums about QC issues affecting several branded products: Nikon cameras and lenses, Canon, Sigma, Tamron, etc.

I thus decided to take my 24mm Nikkor for a walk-around, to see if I have a good copy.

The pictures below were shot at f/8 mostly. Other photos taken with the same lens at bigger apertures are shown under the blog title "Singapore Croissant".

My tentative finding : lens is sharp and contrasty. In future I will use this lens opened up to as large as f/4, with f/5.6 appearing to be its sweet spot!


D70, 24mm f/2.8D, 1/30s@f/8, ISO1600, +0.3EV, AWB -2


D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/8, ISO800, +0.3EV, AWB -2



D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/8,ISO500, +0.3EV, AWB -2



D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/7.1, ISO900, +0.3EV, AWB -2




D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/7.1, ISO400, +0.3EV, AWB -2



D70, 24mm f/2.8D lens, 1/60s@f/8, ISO1600, +0.3EV, AWB -2