The Modern Photographer

The WebLog of Matthew Panzarino Photographer

Screencast: Quick 1 Hour RAW conversion using Adobe Lightroom 2

Feb 17

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Screencasts | No Comments

This screencast was created on a whim, because photographers kept giving me the crazy eyes when I would tell them how long it takes me to convert RAW images. Apparently I’m quick, I have no idea as I’ve never crept into another photographers lair with a stopwatch. This isn’t to say that It’s always this fast, if I have more blown exposures, experimented more or had more locations this process could take significantly longer, this is just how long it took for this particular batch of images. After this process I still do a bit of skin softening and any retouching in Photoshop, but I would estimate approximately 85% of the work is done here. Enjoy.

UPDATE: I’m updating the video on Vimeo to be higher res and there’s a youtube version on the way for you iPhone users…


Quick 1 Hour RAW Conversion of a Wedding with Adobe Lightroom from Matthew Panzarino on Vimeo.

See some sample images after the jump:

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Capturing Your (always) Moving Children With Your Digital Camera!

Feb 8

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Tip Of The Day | 1 Comment

Children are always on the move. Most of the time in un-predictable ways, directions and speeds! Any parent knows that those moments are usually some of the most important ones to capture, but, especially with newer digital cameras, this has always been a real chore, mostly due to one characteristic…. Shutter Lag.

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Photoshop Timesaver: Image and Canvas Size

Jan 22

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Photoshop Tip | No Comments

If you do a lot of combining of images together or any sort of graphics layout with Photoshop, then you most likely use the Image size and Canvas size commands a ton. I use them incessantly and have always hated to dig them out of the Image menu when I need them. There is a quicker way to get there with the mouse however! If you have a document open in windowed mode, then you can right click on the title bar of the window to get access to the Image Size and Canvas Size commands. Also handy under the shortcut menu: File Info, Duplicate and Page Setup. Note that this is a windows only shortcut….

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Tip Of The Day: Return Of The Data

Jan 22

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Tip Of The Day | No Comments

So you’ve deleted images off of your memory card or your hard drive and you’ve tried software methods yourself and your local lab has had no luck getting your images back. Well don’t despair quite yet, there are some other options for getting those images back. Drive and data recovery services abound these days that will let you mail your memory card or drive in so that they can run more thorough recovery diagnostics on them directly.
One that I have had good luck with is Drivesavers.com. They have been in business for a while and have glowing recommendations from pretty much every major publication and for good reason. They will attempt to recover your images after giving you a a firm estimate as to the cost of the recovery and don’t charge you in many cases if they cannot retrieve the images you were looking for. In addition their site offers some free data recovery tips that you can try here. Another service that offers free estimates and handles most types of media, even DVDs and CDs is Tallyn’s Data Recovery, who quotes a week’s turnaround on most Compact Flash Recoveries.

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In Depth Lens Reviews

Jan 22

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Camera Hardware | No Comments

thedigitalpicture

As you flesh out your camera equipment with new specialty lenses and bodies, it can be difficult to decide between lenses with similar zoom ranges or purposes. It’s hard to decipher marketing speak from reality as far as image quality and usability are concerned. I am always on the lookout for sites that give a focused, comprehensive look at a particular manufacturers lenses and equipment instead of trying to spread themselves too thin and give brief reviews on a lot of different systems.

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Film Users: Stop Whining About Digital!

Jan 22

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Rants | No Comments

In the beginning, film users complaining about digital was understandable, it was a new system, with a lot of flaws, including image quality. Then it got annoying as digital started to match the sharpness and printing capabilities of film. Yet the resistance still grew as people complained that digital was too complex, involving new choices like white balance and resolution settings, not realizing that they had made those choices with film as well, anyone remember tungsten balance slide film or FLD and warming filters?
Well the talk continues and now the argument has focused on two major topics. First, that digital just doesn’t have the same feel as film visually, and second, that digital photography somehow has less artistic integrity.

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Film In Digital Clothing

Jan 22

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Software Reviews | No Comments

If you are a film photographer moving into the digital world, you most likely have a favorite film stock. Gone are the days hunting around for a fresh batch of Velvia or E100s, but also gone is that familiar look and feel, the comforting grain pattern that was a part of the way we viewed our images for so long. Enter Alien Skin’s Exposure. Alien Skin is a well known name in the photographic plugin software game, they have been offering their plugin packages for popular photo editing programs like Photoshop for years, and one of their newer products is Exposure, a plugin suite that allows you to simulate the look of many common types of film stocks on your digital images. Click on after the jump for a quick review.

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Canon 5D Mark II v1.0.7 Firmware Update

Jan 21

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Camera Hardware | No Comments

Canon quietly released firmware version 1.0.7 for the 5D Mark II which fixes:

Firmware Update Version 1.0.7 improves and mitigates the
following two types of image quality phenomena that occur
under certain shooting conditions.

   1.  "Black dot" phenomenon
      (the right side of point light sources become black)
   2.  Vertical banding noise
While I have not seen the first problem, having just shot about 5500 frames for Extreme Makeover Home Edition, about 1/8 of which probably had the sun IN the frame, we did recently send a body back to Canon with significant softness and noise banding issues. The quality coming out of this body was fairly poor, so I doubt a firmware update would have fixed the issues with it, but it does make you wonder how much of the image quality issues you see with first-run cameras pertain to the hardware itself or the software running that hardware. All of the bodies I have personally used seem to be fine, even pre-update.

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Canon 5D Demo Video

Jan 20

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Uncategorized | No Comments

I shot a 5D video demo a bit back when we had the Canon tech-rep down and finally got around to getting it posted, such as it is. It’s nothing special but it shows how good the 5D can be in low light, even while shooting video.

NOTE:  To view it in full HD quality or to download the Quicktime source video, click the HD icon on the video.

Canon 5D Mark II Demo Video from Matthew Panzarino on Vimeo.

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Mobile Post Test

Jan 20

Posted by Matthew Panzarino in Test Posts | No Comments

This is a post to test remote updates.

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