ChinaCoop PhotoBlog

I took a slightly different approach to this wedding, in my ever evolving approach to photography gigs. With each wedding, I have been trying to add services to what I can provide for a wedding shoot. This time, the big thing I did was to provide the photography online so that guests of the wedding—well, of course, for the couple themselves too—could view the wedding photos without needing to wait weeks just to see an album in person with the couple.

That is why the photos, though taken way back in February, are just now hitting the gallery. I had them online for the guests, and waited to give them more than enough time to browse through those, before I took them down and created the gallery. Just between you and me: it was taking up a good bit of space for the website, and I had to take them down sometime. :)

Continue reading "New Wedding Photography Gallery Up" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 06:03 AM | Permalink

Continue reading "To Regain My Perspective" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 06:21 AM | Permalink

I accidentally found a versatile and easy way to convert color photos to black & white, and those are two words we like to see together. I have tried out many methods of converting photos to black & white, some incredibly versatile and powerful, but difficult to use, and some very simple, but with no customization. Google's free image editing and organizing software, Picasa, comes through again.

I just found this feature recently. I knew it had black & white conversion, but had not actually used it. If you look under the "Effects" tab when viewing a photo, you will see several (you guessed it) effects which you can apply to your photos. The first one is black & white...but not the one you want.

Continue reading "How Do I Convert Color Photos to Black & White" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 12:37 AM | Permalink

I am about to shoot another wedding on Saturday. I am not exactly a professional wedding photographer, but I seem to have a lot of friends who find it a financial blessing for me to give them the gift of my photographic services for a day. So, like previous wedding shoots, I am trying my very best to give them what I would give paying customers, and in the process, hone my professional wedding photography services and skills...just in case somebody does decide to actually pay me one day.

With this wedding, the big service I am adding is posting the photographs online. In the past, since it has just been friends, I have gone the easiest route and just handed them the processed photographs on CDs. I just realized though, that providing online viewing, not only for the couple and their family but also for the guests, is a wonderful service to the couple—it really should be standard in this day and age.

Continue reading "Wedding Photos Online" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 02:06 AM | Permalink

Continue reading "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Lack of Fungus" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 04:31 AM | Permalink

That is a quote. I just talked on the phone with the camera repair technician at Hale Photo Supply in Oklahoma City, and he said, "I just finished with your 85mm lens...the fungus wiped right off." Whoopee!

I can barely contain my relief. The lens had a lot of fungus, very widespread over several elements inside the lens, and knowing my prized lens is back in action with bright, shiny surfaces is wonderful to know.

Continue reading "Fungus Wiped Right Off" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 01:02 AM | Permalink

Obviously, regardless of the presentation problem needing a solution, PowerPoint is the clear and solitary answer...or so goes the thinking of far too many people. When all that is desired is to show photos in a professional presentation, I have seen way too many people turn to PowerPoint as their solution. In most cases, though, it is far more trouble than it is worth for presenting photos.

Think slide shows, you know, the good old clicks and turns of mounted slides in a projector carousel. The only difference is that now, with computers, loading in the photos to be displayed is far more easy than figuring out which way around they go in a carousel, and you do not have the danger of dumping all the slides out by tilting your computer the wrong way.

Continue reading "Ubiquitous PowerPoint" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 11:00 AM | Permalink

I used to live under the false presumption that my lenses were sealed. I now know they are not. Now, if you have a compact camera, this basically is not problem for you. If, however, you have an SLR camera with changeable lenses, you need to keep those lenses dry.

I appeared quite suddenly, but not even knowing what it was at first, I did not realize anything bad was happening. The fungus looks a little like tiny spider webs or maybe some kind of dusty looking crystal. I now know we have fungus among us.

Continue reading "Fungus Warning" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 12:59 PM | Permalink

I had an interesting revelation lately. Once upon a time, I had no idea why I would ever use the depth-of-field preview button on my camera, just beside my lens. I had pushed it, it made a click, and nothing seemed to happen. So, with all the gadgetry on my camera already, I just moved on in my manual to try to understand the next baffling button.

Ok, "depth-of-field preview button" sounds pretty self explanatory...and in fact, it is. You just have to learn how to use it. First, though, we need a brief recap of some basic photographic theory: the larger the aperture, the more narrow the depth-of-field.

We often want to drop out the background details or use the focus to draw the viewer's eye to a particular section, and to do that, we enlarge. Sometimes though, like in landscape photography, we want everything possible in focus, and thus will need a small aperture. The depth-of-field preview button can help us see what is and what is not going to be in focus.

My revelation began when I was exploring what a little lever on my lens mount actually did.

Continue reading "Using the Depth-of-Field Preview Button" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 09:40 AM | Permalink

I can manual focus, I just did not know it. I had previously thought that when I went to manual focus on my Nikon D100, I just had to focus till it looked about right. I did not have the old split circle in the middle of my viewfinder like my older manual focus camera has, so I assumed I did not have anything at all to guide me. Wrong.

I was goofing around at Epperson's Photo in Oklahoma City—I must say, having not been in a nice camera store for a few years, this trip was exhilarating—talking to a guy behind the counter about all kinds of topics: using this flash on that camera, this lens for that purpose, and such. I mentioned my manual focus woes, and he said, "You should be able to see the little dot in the bottom left of the viewfinder to tell you when you are in focus, even if using a manual focus lens...I think." You are kidding me?

Continue reading "Manual Focus Epiphany" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 12:45 PM | Permalink

I have spent the last few days trying to hunt down a shop which processes slides, and it has turned out to be a confusing and lengthy adventure. I expected as much. On top of that, I am trying to find a projector to actually view them, once I have them ready to view. Neither is very easy.

Why would I even bother with slides? Too 1970s for you? Well, for one, the quality still far surpasses digital cameras. And two (the real reason), I have a lot of slides and I actually want to view them instead of leaving them stored forever, lost to all memory.

Continue reading "Slides Are So 1970s" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 10:13 AM | Permalink

I took this photo a while back, and though the photo itself does not really say all that much, the editing really brought out a different perspective. It was really just a test shot to play with my circ-polar filter and how the wet surfaces showed up. Back in the computer, I briefly played around with it in my raw image editor, UFRaw, and a very different image began to appear.

Continue reading "To Edit or Not To Edit" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 05:44 PM | Permalink

I have run into a nasty problem the past few weeks: printing my digital photos. They just do not look the same as they did on my computer. Usually, they go from vibrant to dull. It is always some problem with color.

I recently took a couple photos of my newborn son—I have taken much more than a couple, obviously—which I wanted to print out for the grandparents. I had already spent a good amount of time on my computer adjusting the color and contrast to get the photos just were I wanted them, especially for the supple skin tones on my little boy's face.

Continue reading "Printing Digital Photographs" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 07:52 AM | Permalink

Why did I switch to digital? You would almost never hear this question actually asked in publiic anymore. It is just an assumption that everybody would switch. Yes, there are many good reasons to do so, but for me, it was fiercely practical.

In a sentence, film and processing in China are unreliable. In one of the copy cat capitals of the world, you never really know what is real and what is fake in China, including that Kodak or Fuji roll of film on the shelves. Most people ask, "How can film be fake? Film is film." Not true. Film is specific chemicals at specific amounts on specific "papers", and trickster Chinese film makers cut costs on chemicals. Though most people have never thought about the effects of these chemicals, they would still very easily notice the difference if they compared photographs taken with genuine and fake films. The color is washed out, giving them a bluish or gray tint, and often grainy.

But that is not all! The processing stinks too! Somehow, even the most beautiful photos turn awful in Chinese processing. My guess is the same. They cut costs by using a below standard amount of chemicals, thus leaving your photos abou the same as bad film.

Continue reading "Film and Printing in China" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 03:21 PM | Permalink

Continue reading "New Digital Views" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 08:07 AM | Permalink

I have thought much about this topic the past few weeks. I have heard countless digital photographers say there is not a need for filters anymore, because the desired effects can just be edited on the computer in post-processing. Some traditional folks take it too far the other way and say that filters must be applied to the original shot and cannot be created in a computer.

I land in the middle of that debate. Some filters cannot be replaced and change the photo in such a way that would take days in the computer, if even possible in the first place. Other filters are pretty much pointless.

Continue reading "What Filters Do I Need for My Digital Cameras?" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 08:40 AM | Permalink

A few days ago, my friend and I were looking at each others cameras and messing around with some of the features. It was actually quite fun comparing. I have the older Nikon D100, a 6 megapixel camera. He has a newer Canon EOS 350D (same thing as the Rebel XT, for some confusing marketing reason), a slightly larger 8 megapixel camera.

So, they are not really intended to be compared. Mine was a higher line (in its day) and his is the entry level digital SLR for Canon. Yet, I wanted to see how they differed and what had improved in digital cameras in the three year period between the release of our two cameras.

Continue reading "Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT Focus Speed" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 08:44 AM | Permalink

I remember back when I used my dad's Nikon that I used his zoom lens. And in high school, I know the annual staff's lens was also a zoom. After that though, all I ever bought were fixed focal length, or "prime", lenses (or my favorite: "fast glass"). With my Vivitar V4000, I have a Pentax-M 50mm 1:1.7. When I bought the D100, I bought with it an Nikkor 85mm 1:1.8D.

I did not understand the issues digital SLRs have with focal length back then, and thought I was really buying an 85mm. But with the D100s 1.5 magnification (because the sensor is smaller than 35mm film), that 85mm really ends up acting like a 125mm. I will have to say it is great to achieve the purpose for which I bought it (people, face shots), but cannot be the only lens in the bag for very long.

I soon had to add my Nikkor 50mm 1:1.4D, which has backed me off quite a bit. Of course, the 50mm acts like a 75mm would on a film camera. I would still like to have something a little wider at times, but really, the 50mm does a great job for me. I often shoot in low light, and the wide open f/stops of those lenses really help me out. Plus, I love the selective depth of field (or choice to have such) the wide open apertures give me.

That is it. I have two lenses at the moment. I like to keep my camera bag pretty simple; that is just my style.

Posted by ChinaCoop at 08:59 AM | Permalink

I started my photographic ventures on my dad's Nikon. It had optional automatic speed adjustment, but manual aperture (aperture priority, that is). It was my early exposure to his camera that began my aperture centered approach to photography.

Continue reading "What Camera Do You Use?" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 09:49 AM | Permalink

The short answer: The GIMP & UFRaw

The long answer:
I am an unashamed Linux guy. You may ask, "Why not use Windows like everyone else?", "Why not switch to Mac like the enlightened photographers out there?". Well, because it would be silly of me to pay for those things which I can get for free.

Continue reading "What Graphical Editing Software Do You Use?" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 08:13 AM | Permalink

I really could not say for sure why I decided to distort the whole QingMing photo collection. It really is a shift for me, for usually, I am a pretty standard issue, depict real life, photojournalistic type of photographer. Usually, I just want to document what is going on, telling the story that is already in front of me.

The first photo, if I remember correctly, that I distorted was "Say What". Something about the colors and subject matter just jumped out at me when I shot it, and I wanted it to jump out at others, too. Really, though, all the original photos from that day had some strange coloring already. I still cannot quite figure out what was going on. I am guessing it was just the bright sunlight. One thing is for sure: mountainside graveyards at midday are not the best lighting situations.

Continue reading "Experiment with Photo Distortion" »

Posted by ChinaCoop at 05:26 PM | Permalink