Saturday, December 7, 2013

Looking back ... on PP's 5th anniversay

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of Photo Potpourri, and I thought I'd observe the occasion with a couple of posts indulging in a familiar pastime known as "looking back." I'm going to start with a post that provides a sort of behind-the-scenes peek that I doubt many bloggers would offer readers.

Blogspot, Photo Potpourri's Internet host, provides blog operators and managers various statistics to monitor traffic, as well as to ascertain where traffic is coming from, what is popular and how often people land at the site. I now look in on this data at least every other day to help me determine if I'm offering content of value or worth. I'm pleased to say that traffic has increased through the years -- very gradually the first four years, and by quite a lot this past year.

I've had just over 400 posts since the inaugural one in December 2008 (a post that, ironically, did not carry a single photograph!). That's an average of 80 posts per year, and there have been just under 90,000 hits on the various pages of the blog in that time.

The most viewed post (also known as the post with the most "hits") from as long as I have been following the data has been an interview I did of Indianapolis wedding photographer Rich Miller (left) for Photo Potpourri's former "Photographer in the Spotlight" feature. The Miller interview, which featured some of Rich's great work, went online Nov. 19, 2009. That post, in fact, has been a rock solid No. 1 "hit" -- its total hits (in the four-digits realm) more than doubles that of the runner-up post in hits, also in four digits, which was a recap of the Garfield Shakespeare Company's production of Macbeth (below), staged in a colonial America setting, in September 2010.


My theory on the popularity of the Miller post is that either Rich recommends it to potential clients who inquire about his services, or that potential clients find and check it out while researching possible photographers. My initial guess had been that Rich had a link to the post on his business's website, but when I visited his site to see if that were the case, I couldn't find any such link, so I don't think that's driving the traffic.

Those of you unfamiliar with the former "Photographer in the Spotlight" feature, whose run ended in May 2010, might find the monthly installments interesting reads -- and will introduce you to photographers you might never had come across. Just click on "Spotlight" from the Labels list on the right side of this blog's home page -- or click on the link in the first line of this paragraph -- to bring up all the profiles in the series.

Ranking third on this blog's all-time most-visited-post list is a piece I wrote (with pictures I took) about basketball player Chrishawn Hopkins after his debut performance for the Butler University men's basketball team in November 2010. The hits on that post -- now also in the four digits -- increased hugely two years later when Hopkins left the team for unannounced reasons. Hopkins transferred to Wright State University in fall 2012, and this fall, after sitting out a year, he began playing for the Raiders in his third year of college eligibility.

The fourth-most visited Photo Potpourri post went up Dec. 26, 2012. It was about the oddity of so many tilting trees in Garfield Park, such as the one below, on the Southside of Indianapolis. The fact that it got that many hits in a much shorter time span than posts Nos. 1-3 is remarkable ... but not as remarkable as the meteroric popularity of the post at No. 5.


My report and pictures about the scenic campus of Rose-Hulman Insitute of Technology, a post just barely two months old as of this writing, easily scored the most hits in the shortest time span of any post ever at this blog. I think the explanation is that I had included a link to the post (and to two others I did on Rose-Hulman during my visit there on Sept. 21 of this year) in an email to Dale Long, the school's director of news services. I was doing a followup inquiry to ask for help identifying students in the school's homecoming court whom I photographed during halftime of the Fightin' Engineers football game against Defiance College. The post was lush with images of the scenic campus, including the shot below of Percopo Hall (left) and White Chapel (right) along Speed Lake, and I'm guessing Long shared the link with school officials, students and acquaintances, who in turn passed it along, etc.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Canon 6D and its in-camera HDR feature

For some time, I'd been itching to upgrade to a digital camera with a full-frame sensor to exploit the larger frame and, because of the greater number of pixels, the higher-quality resolution in my non-sports shoots. Besides, any camera purchased new will contain the industry's latest technology, which almost always is a plus. Of critical concern for me in the new technology realm is a camera's ISO range and its low-noise performance in low-light situations.

I've been using Canon's 7D as my primary camera since December 2009, and it's served me very well. It's Canon top of the line digital single-lens reflex body in the crop-factor (small-sensor) family. Its ISO quality was a significant improvement over that in my previous primary body, the 30D. It also was Canon's first DSLR to be equipped with the dual DIGIC processor, and the first camera of any kind to feature a chip that serves as wireless trigger that photographers can use to shoot off-camera flash without having to buy and or employ additional hardware such as a Pocket Wizard system. The 7D's in-camera trigger, employed through the pop-up flash, is restricted in two key areas, however. It works only with Canon higher-end flashes, and the camera's pop-up must be in the line of sight of at least a portion of a flash unit's front side so that the chip can find the flash unit to trigger.

Of particular benefit to me has been the 7D's speedy burst rate -- 8.2 frames per second, which comes in handy for my sports, concerts and theater shoots. So good is the 7D, whose magnesium alloy body included dust and weather resistance protection, that the only significant thing I was sacrificing by selecting it over the much-heralded 5D Mark II at the time of purchase was the full-frame sensor. That larger sensor, however, figured into the 5DM2's superior image quality and ISO light sensitivity. Apparently, Canon felt that was enough to justify the two cameras' $1,000 price differential. But to pro shooters, that in itself was sufficient, and I don't argue that.

So it was with much consternation that I saw that the 2012 upgrade of the 5D -- the Mark III -- priced at $3,800 when it hit the market. The Mark III promised to improve image quality and low-light sensitivity even more, and it introduced a built-in high-dynamic (HDR) rage feature, piquing my interest because of the extensive HDR work I've done the past three years. But that price point again kept me at a distance ... and prolonged any decision to upgrade. Also figuring into the deliberation was the fact that I started to assess a move to a lighter mirrorless camera.

The mirrorless bodies were introduced two and a half years ago and really started cranking off the production lines in droves within the past 12 to 15 months. From what I've read, most of them are good-quality products whose light-weight bodies and lenses present a distinct appeal to the photographer who spends a lot of time on shoots and assignments. I do believe that at some point, because of the constant evolution in technology, mirrorless will be almost equal in use, popularity and versatility with the DSLR.

Then Canon grabbed my attention later in 2012 when it released the 6D. Its initial price of $2,400 was more than $1,000 less than the 5DM3. Gear experts who reviewed the 6D heralded its image quality and ISO light sensitivity -- even to the point of rating it above the 5DM2. Plus, the 6D is equipped with the built-in HDR feature, just like the 5DM3; the difference, however, is that the 5DM3 will allow you to shoot HDR scenes in RAW format, while the 6D allows only JPG. There are other differences -- the 5D offers a 6 frames per second burst rate, the 6D, 4.5.

The three significant factors that reviewers say separate the 6D from the more expensive 5DM3 was the latter's weather and dust sealing, its 61 (vs. 11) focus points, and its two media slots -- one for SD, the other for CF. The 6D has but one slot, for SD media. But, the 6D has something the 5DM3 does not -- GPS and WiFi capabilities, which are features I'm not really excited about just yet ... but may be in the near future.

About a month ago, I heard about a price-buster deal on the 6D offered by B&H, a respected camera/video retailer based in New York that does extensive business through its online store. It had the 6D body and a package of four accessories (a Canon gadget bag, a 16MB Sandisk Ultimate SDHC memory card, an aluminum monopod and an off-brand battery) priced at $1,699. I've bought camera gear from B&H, so I was confident in what I was seeing.

I took the plunge.

I haven't said anything here about the purchase for a while because, well ... because of economics. Even with that great deal, ever since I've been living largely on retirement income, I wasn't sure I'd be able to afford or justify holding onto the camera, and I wanted an option to return it if it proved to be something I quickly came to realize was out of my reach. I've been testing the 6D off and on since, and I'm certain I'm going to keep it.

The post here last month of my autumn pictures in Garfield Park was my first shoot with the 6D. Pictures of leaves from my backyard in a subsequent post also were taken with the 6D. Last week, I went out to the park again and tested the camera's HDR feature. I started the shoot using one-stop increments for my three exposures (i.e., one image taken at normal exposure, one taken at one stop under normal exposure, and one stop over normal exposure, or -1,0,+1). About 15 minutes into the shoot, I boosted the intervals to two stops (-2,0,+2). I had the 6D mounted on a tripod for all the shots and used a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens. I set my white balance to sunlight and ISO to 100, and used aperture priority (f/8), which meant the shutter would be the variable to determine the different exposures.

My impressions of the results are mixed; the 6D did a very nice job with blues -- particularly skies and water (such as the shot of Bean Creek leading off the post), but not too well with anything that was photographed when the sun's angle toward the subject was 90 degrees or less.

Because the 6D's in-camera HDR feature can be used with JPGs only, what you see here had little editing in post-processing. I tweaked some for slight variations on exposure and saturation, but not much at all. The editing went quickly; that is rarely the case when I process my RAW images for HDR through the software program Photomatix.

The bottom line (so far) is that the in-camera HDR feature is nice to have in a pinch (or hurry), and I will do more testing with the single-stop increments ... and possibly even the three-stop increments (the built-in feature offers only those three increment options). But I plan to do future serious HDR work the way I always have -- shoot in RAW format and process images through Photomatix, where I have greater editing control with exposure, color and textures.

Above: A long-range view of the MacAllister Center for the Performing Arts amphitheater.

Above and below: Bean Creek seen from the pedestrian bridge just west of the Sunken Gardens. The closer shot below shows some of the ice formations that had formed the previous night.


Above: Deciduous trees are now leafless, but you could see still thousands of leaves on the ground and sidewalk near the ginko trees that line this stretch of Conservatory Drive. The female ginkos drop berry-shaped seeds in the fall that soon become rancid smelling. While the leaf colors in sunlight are stunning, the odor you smell when accidentally stepping on the seeds is quite the opposite. If you look in the distance a little left of center in the photo above, you can see the V-shaped sycamore that I grabbed a closeup of below.


Above: The backlight situation on this reflection of Pleasant Run intrigued me ... as did the curiosity of how HDR would handle it. The answer: HDR did very little to help. This picture required the most work of the whole batch in post-processing. I had to reduce the shadows levels a good amount and struggled to find a balance between that and contrast. I made monochrome conversions of this and one other shot of the same scene, taken from a tighter angle. I decided to use this in the post to show the true amount of color in the real image -- very little.


Above: Here was an instance where HDR really wasn't necessary; light was even throughout most of the frame. But I decided to try it anyway to see what if the feature would enrich the green coloring on these conifers.

Above: Indianapolis Fire Station 29, which is along Pleasant Run Parkway at the junction of Conservatory Drive, just west of the bridge locals refer to as Ticklebelly Hill. 

Above: Of all the scenes I photographed in this shoot, the contrasty lighting in this image -- very dark under and in the front shadows of the railroad overpass, and bright in the background and foreground -- was best suited for the classic use of HDR, which is to draw optimum detail from both light and dark elements of an image. My impression on how the 6D HDR did on this? Very good. 

Above: HDR helped bring out a little detail in the shadow area inside the shelter.

Above: Another frame where HDR was mostly unnecessary, but I liked the way it was bringing out rich colors in the blues, so I used it on this shot of Pleasant Run, looking northeast off the Ticklebelly Hill bridge.

Above: I was pleased with the sky color in this otherwise untampered with image. I've been itching for some time to compose a shot from this angle in incorporate the park's storied pagoda on the right, the Garfield Park Arts Center in the background left, and the two conifers, especially the tilting one on the right. Even though the 24-70mm lens takes in more content on the large-sensor 6D than it did on the smaller-sensor 7D, it still wasn't enough to fit in all of the pagoda. 

Above and below: The backlight and shadows grabbed my attention in the composition above. If it looks familiar, like the one immediately below might to regular readers of Photo Potpourri, it's because I've taken and used these shots here before -- but the previous ones were winter scenes, when there was snow on the ground. The winter shot of the one above, however, was on an overcast day -- when there was no backlight.


Above: The Burrello Family Center and parking lot.

Above: I came across yet another Garfield Park tilter of a tree during my walk-around. This is along Pagoda Drive, just north of the recycling bin and across the meadow from the Garfield Park Arts Center.

Above: Someone left these munchies on a picnic table for the critters and birds to feast on. And no, I didn't set up that leaf and shadow on the right; that's exactly as I came upon it.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

A toast -- and thanks -- to Bill Riggs

Every once in a while, when you're not paying attention, someone who has made an impression on you in some way, whether small or large, vanishes from your life in an instant. We all have experienced it.

I noted one such instance a year and a half ago -- two people, in fact, Deborah Wagner and R. Dodge Woodson -- in a post here. It happened again last week, on Thanksgiving Day, when a fellow photo club member, Bill Riggs, passed away after a several-months battle with medical issues that began with a grand mal seizure and were compounded when doctors discovered cancer in his abdomen.

Riggs kept a low profile -- you might even have characterized him as a lurker -- in his early years of membership in the Indy Meetup Photo Club. But in the past two years, he emerged as a vital and cherished contributor. He had a dry demeanor, and if you managed to get him to smile or laugh, you felt like you accomplished something. Underneath that tough facade, he had a passion for the craft and a desire to help those in need.

Two Decembers ago, he was the club's lead photographer for two IMUPC activities. One was the setup and operation of the club's station at one of the Indianapolis locations of the annual global Help Portrait project, an endeavor in which photographers, hair stylists and makeup artists come together in communities to provide free holiday portraits to the underprivileged. The other was the club's photo booth at the annual Old World Christmas Market bazaar at Joy of All Who Sorrow Church, located at 16th and Delaware streets in the Old Northside Neighborhood of Indianapolis.

Just a couple months before that, he joined other IMUPC members and members of the Indiana Photographic Society to photo document special needs individuals attending and enjoying the annual Handicapable Camp in Bradford Woods in Morgan County, Ind. In the past year and a half, he was a key component, along with Greg Mitchell, in jump-starting an effort by IMUPC to offer club members some structured opportunities to learn, improve and practice portraiture skills in a relaxed atmosphere. I was among club members who sat in on the first sessions; Greg started off the instruction, and Bill followed up with video lesson reinforcement, practice opportunities and coaching. Both did a lot to open my eyes to nuances needed to feel more comfortable in handling portraiture. I owe much gratitude to both of them for that.

Included with the text of this post are a few pictures I took of Bill in some of the activities mentioned above. The image leading off the post and the first four below were taken at that 2011 Help Portrait activity. When Bill dressed up in the cheerful Santa garb and interacted with adults and children alike -- including helping the young girl in the lead photo learn more about her compact camera -- well, it was the first time I saw that side of Bill.

IMUPC created an album of these and other Riggs photos, which you can find at the club website by following the link in this sentence.

Above and below: Bill was sitting for some practice shots as IMUPC members tested camera settings (at first we used Bill's camera, the original Canon 5D, before switching out our own during the day), and the lighting for proper exposure and white balance (coloring) at Help Portrait 2011, held at the Hoosier Veterans Assistance Foundation, 964 N. Pennsylvanis St, Indianapolis. Bill probably would have appreciated the information I give next: The candid shot above was taken with available light, which is why the coloring on the face is a little different than the one taken below, which was taken with flash (I think from the pop-up on my Canon 7D) ... and which is why you see the shadow on the left and the reflection of light next to Bill's cap.


Above: Bill talking shop -- well, information sharing, actually -- with the same girl you see taking his picture in the lead photo of this post. 

Above: At the end of the Help Portrait 2011 shoot, photographers who were still around posed for a group picture. That's Bill poking his head into the frame on the far right. In a bit of irony (deliberate or not), he was standing immediately in front of one of the strobes used to light the picture. Perhaps he was trying to teach us another lesson ... 

Above: Bill resting during a break at the club's photo portrait booth at the 2011 Old World Christmas Market at the Joy of All Who Sorrow Church, 1516 N. Delaware St., Indianapolis. The T-shirt he wore reveals his punsy sense of humor; the top hat he sports was from the wardrobe of period garb that portrait subjects were invited to wear for the photographs.

Above and below: Also at the Old World Christmas Market, Bill converses (above) with club organizer Carol Thompson and (below) joins club member Hershel Saylor in browsing some of the items on display in the market area. 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Some autumn leaf colors belie tree names

So I thought I'd had my one autumn photo fling last Thursday when I dropped into Garfield Park in Indianapolis, producing this post.

But then, while gazing out the kitchen window into my backyard Saturday afternoon, I happened to notice some interesting light play on the leaves on one of my Henry's Garnet bushes and on my redbud tree in the circular garden. I grabbed a camera, mounted it with a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro lens and headed outside. Garnet bush leaves have a brilliant red color in autumn when the sun strikes it right; the photo leading off this post is a good example ... and is why I grabbed my camera when I saw it.

The redbud tree and I have a fond history, one that goes back to my first year out of college, which I spent editing a weekly newspaper in Columbus, Wis. (Wisconsin is where I lived from about age 3 through college plus the one year in Columbus.) Columbus is known as the Red Bud City, and there is a median on Dickison Boulevard there that is lined with redbuds. Because I was there only a year, I enjoyed the streetlong, annual spring blossom just once. But it was a spectacle I appreciated.

When I moved into my current home, a tree existed in the backyard spot where my circular garden is located today. The tree died about eight years or so after I moved in, so I had it removed. I left the spot bare for several years, then developed the circular garden in the spot. A neighbor harbored a couple of redbuds in their yard, and if you know redbuds, you know they are prolific self-seeders. I find myself pulling tiny new, unwanted redbud starts all over my yard throughout the year. But I left one seedling alone in the circular garden about five years ago, deciding to see if I could grow a modest size tree to regain some backyard shade I lost when the original tree died. It worked.

I find it ironic that the redbud's spring blossoms are pink, not red, and that its pansy-like green leaves turn gold, not red, in autumn. And speaking of irony, the blueberry bush leaves turn (are you ready?) red in autumn as well. I got a picture of one of those as well.


Above and below -- from the redbud tree.


Above: On my lawn but from a tree not in my yard, so it must have blown in from elsewhere. 

A perspective shot (above) of one of my Henry's Garnet bushes, and a closeup (below) of one of its leaves. 


Above: Autumn blueberry bush leaves that are ... not blue.

Monday, November 11, 2013

A night at the racetrack features
a couple of foot races to the finish line

Lucas Oil Raceway in Clermont, Ind., a community that straddles the Marion and Hendricks county lines in Central Indiana, combined the popular allure of a race track and the mystique of twilight to host its second annual Dragstrip Dash footrace on Oct. 26.

The 5K and 10K runs were the last item on the busy 2013 calendar for the track, whose premier event each year is the Chevy Performance U.S. Nationals drag races. Years ago, the Indianapolis 500 Mini-Marathon hatched the idea to include a potion of the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway on its course for runners for a competition that now is one of the largest half-marathons in the world.

Lucas Oil Raceway advances the concept significantly by mapping the entire 5K and 10K courses on its property, starting runners down the 4,400-foot-long drag strip that hosts the U.S. Nationals before turning and curling them along and around the 2.5-mile road course and 0.686-mile oval track, which is adjacent to the drag strip.

The Dragstrip Drag's inaugural event in 2012 had just a 5K run; this year's event featured the addition of the 10K and a quarter-mile jaunt for kids. Jeff Coates of TrueNorth and Associates handled the photography for the 2012 event. When the raceway expressed interest in having a second photographer on hand because of the expanded competitions and events, Jeff asked me to join him.

Many of the participants stopped to have friends and family snap pictures of themselves with the race course's iconic arch in the background, akin to what you see in the lead photograph above. Many stuck around to enjoy one of the post-race perks -- s'mores.

I shot the race with a Canon 7D and alternated among three lenses -- a Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II PZD VC, a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS and a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L. I used the Tamron for the start of the races, exploiting its expansive zoom versatility to handle the swarm of people coming at me along the dragstrip. Fortunately, there was still enough available light to allow me to use that relatively slow lens. After the start shots, I turned to the 70-200mm lens, which I used exclusively until shooting the aftermath and finish line, which is when I switched to the 24-70mm.

A full gallery of my images from this event can be found at my site at SmugMug. If any participants or their family and/or friends are interested in purchasing copies of photos taken by either Jeff or me at this event, visit this link: Dragstrip Dash 2013.

Above and below: Before the race, volunteers check in participants and prepare ingredients for one of the post-race perks -- s'mores.


Above: As the children ran through their fun run, a couple of the 5K/10K participants warmed up along the knoll separating the drag strip from the oval track.

Above and next two below: Runners are off at the 6:30 p.m. start, led on the bicycle by Don Carr of race manager Tuxedo Brothers. Male participants kept to the right, females to the left. Moments later (first below), a clear men's leader emerges, and another one struggles to stay close, as they vie to claim a special award for the first participant to cross the quarter-mile marker (second below).  



Above and next three below: Participants were of all ages.





Above: At the north end of the road course, runners were greeted by these pumpkins lined along the pavement. When it turned dark, the lights inside the pumpkins also helped runners fix their bearings.

Above and next two below: Runners head south along the road course before making a right turn to enter the oval track. For quite a few runners, the going was still pretty fun.



Above: Once inside the oval, runners curled left to tackle the north chute.

Above and next several below: After emerging from the north chute runners and walkers greeted the water stop crew.




Above and next four below: Runners emerge from the oval's south chute and return toward the hairpin-turn opening that will get them back onto the road course. 






Above: An available light exposure of the finish line and arch, where some of the last participants passed through near the end of the competition.
  



Above and next two below: The track served as a backdrop for a lot of participant photos, but at the end of the race, the darkness -- and starkness -- gave the grounds a ghost-town-like feel.



Above and next two below: Before the competitions, race crew prepared the barrels for participants to use to enjoy their s'mores.


 

Above and next four below: The new children's fun run started off activities at 6 p.m. Runners ran an eighth of a mile to a point marked by orange cones before turning around and heading back to the start line.





Above and remainder below: A few landscape shots of the race track.