My Favorite Auto-Focus Setting

Are you satisfied with the AF capabilities of you camera? I find the AF of the Canon 30D adequate, but not great. Sometimes it hunts a bit and sometimes it focuses all the way to infinity and back before it finds the focus plane. And when shooting with a tele, the plane of focus is not always exactly where I wanted it to be. But I guess all users of all cameras have similar problems from time to time and since these are only occasional, I don’t think that the AF of my camera is faulty. Assuming that your AF works properly, what kinds of settings do you use for the kind of shooting that you do? I’ve gone through several “evolutions”:

1. “AI Focus AF” and all AF sensors active. The “AI” stands for “artificial intelligence” and makes a Canon camera use some fuzzy logic to determine when to do single-shot AF and when to do continuous AF. But this setting had several problems. First of all, fuzzy logic is unpredictable, and the camera was not always doing what I was hoping it would do. Furthermore activating all AF sensors makes the camera focus on the closest thing that any of the AF sensors are pointing at. For portraits the focus is always on the tip of the nose and not on the eyes, and it’s a nuisance focusing through grass or a fence or things like that.
2. Pretty soon I switched to single point AF and of course chose the center point. This worked better. I’d aim the camera so that the thing that I want to be in focus is covered by the central AF sensor, press the shutter half-way, then recompose and take the photo.
3. Since I don’t shoot any sports, I also switched to one-shot AF. In 98% of all situations this was the right setting, and for the other 2% I manually switched to continuous AF.
4. I also experimented with selecting AF points other than the central one, but this had some disadvantages: for many shots the points are not ideally located, the interface for choosing the active point is OK, but still not as fast as I’d like it to be. Also, after taking a shot I’d leave the active AF point unchanged, so I had to do it before the next shot, which caused me to lose some shots.
5. So I went back to using only the central point and “focus, recompose, shoot.” That coupled with single-shot AF worked very well for me for a long time.
6. But if I wanted to take several shots of something which off center and not moving, the “focus, recompose, shoot” thing was getting irritating. And what if the camera gets the focus wrong? I’d have to adjust it manually before each shot!
7. What I actually needed was a way to activate the AF at will and not each time I released the shutter. And luckily, Canon offers such a way, using custom function 4, “Shutter/AE Lock button.” By choosing setting 1, “AE lock/AF,” you turn the exposure-lock button (the one with the * on it) into an AF button and the half-press of the shutter-release activates the exposure lock. It takes a few days to get used to this, but after a while it feels perfect! You aim your camera at something, press the * button and the thing comes in focus. Now you move the camera around, looking for a good composition. When you do, you press the shutter-release completely. For further shots you don’t activate the AF at all, you just press the shutter-release. This has three positive effects: no more “focus, recompose, shoot,” you use less battery juice, and you have a way of fine-tuning the AF plane between shots. This last point is important, because with the standard setting the AF gets activated before each shot and you have no constant reference across the shots.
8. OK, so at this point I was a pretty happy camper… until I got to India. In Germany I hadn’t done much street shooting (who does?), but in India there is so much action in the street that you are constantly switching from one person to the next. Some are static, but many are moving — the single-shot AF was not working very well any more.

Now I use the following AF settings: custom function 4 set to 1, continuous AF and only the central AF point is active. This way I can press the * button shortly for static subjects, then think about composition, exposure, etc. Or I can press it continuously for moving subjects. I can even hold it pressed and release the shutter at the same time. It works extremely well for me! WARNING: if you decide to try the custom function 4 idea, don’t do it before a major shoot! You’d forget that your AF is not automatically active, and you’d screw half of your pictures. Try it when you have a week or two of leisure shooting and gradually get used to the new functionality. QUESTION: Do camera makers other than Canon offer a similar functionality — moving the AF away from the shutter-release button?

Review of Mastering Black and White Digital Photography

I am still on a quest to improve my black-and-white photographs, and I am still looking at various books. I’ve already reviewed two books (review 1 and review 2) which were not quite what I was looking for, but Michael Freeman’s Mastering Black and White Digital Photography is quite good.

The book delivers exactly what the title promises — clear and practical advice about how to create good black and white photographs using digital methods. It is divided into 5 chapters.

Chapter one, The language of Mono, is supposed to be an introduction: why do we make black and white photographs, what makes a good black and white photograph, what to watch out for when making black and white images. In other words it’s more artistic than technical, but with 16 pages only it’s too short to cover the topics in any depth at all. In fact, the book would probably be better off without this chapter. Or how about showing 16 gorgeous black and white images without accompanying them by superficial comments?

Chapter two, Color into Grayscale, covers just about everything you need to know about converting a color image into black and white. On 50 pages it discusses the channel mixer in great detail and shows you how to “place” any color anywhere on the brightness scale. Several pages are dedicated to achieving realistic skin tones of dark, light and Asian skin.

Having attained a black and white image with optimal relationships between the gray tones in chapter two, chapter three, Digital Black and White, shows you how to optimize the appearance of such an image: maximizing the dynamic range, retaining shadow detail, preventing blown highlights, various methods of adjusting the tonal distribution, dodging and burning using layers and layer masks. There is also a discussion about noise, upscaling, scanning negatives and positives. All in all, quite interesting 40 pages.

On the next 28 pages chapter four, Image Editing and Effects, discusses further important topics: conveying a specific mood, image toning, duotones and tritones and some less important ones: bas relief, solarization, posterization, hand coloring.

The last chapter, The Print, is once again too short to have any depth or value. On 10 pages the author touches on the topics of desktop printers, creating contact sheets, printer calibration, ink and paper and mounting and framing an image. Not only is the information here utterly short, it is also dated. The printers discussed are the budget Canon Selphy and Pixma without a word on the higher quality ink jets like the Epson 3800. Instead of talking about third-party monochrome ink-sets, Michael Freeman should have better discussed the now-standard black-and-white modes of the printer drivers and their ability to produce stunning black and white images with the standard ink sets.

So what’s the final verdict? I’d say that the book is definitely worth reading and the information presented in chapters 2, 3 and 4 more than makes up for the weak chapters 1 and 5. Simply concentrate on pages 26 — 144.

And now a question. Are there any even better books out there? Something more artistic maybe? I feel like I now have a grasp of the technical side of black-and-white, but I need a ideas on further increasing the impact of my images.

Review of HyperDrive Colorspace

For my recent trip to India I had to keep the size and weight of my backpack low, so instead of a laptop, I simply took a HyperDrive Colorspace with me. My backup strategy was:

1. Have enough memory cards to simultaneously hold all my images from the entire trip.
2. Every night backup each used card onto the HyperDrive.

I carried all cards in my photo bag and left the HyperDrive in my backpack at the hotel. My reasoning was that it’s extremely improbable that something bad would happen simultaneously to my camera bag and to my backpack. And I kept two copies of each card onto the HyperDrive because drive sectors do go bad from time to time, and “double holds better.” The HyperDrive was my insurance, and like all insurances, you virtually never need it, but it’s still good to have it. I imagine that for some of you making backups might sound like too much hassle while using only one backup drive might sound too optimistic to others. To me it felt just right.

Anyhow, how did the HyperDrive Colorspace perform? Well — it performed not too bad and not too great. I bought it sight unseen, based on the “highly recommended” verdict by Michael Reichmann and numerous other positive recommendations posted onto various Internet forums. Maybe due to all the positive feedback I had my expectations set too high, but I was quite disappointed with the speed, convenience and display quality of the HyperDrive Colorspace. It might be that it’s better than all other external drives out there, maybe even a lot better, but the Canon 30D has a much better and larger display and display layout, much better controls for scrolling through the images and it’s at least 15 times faster when scrolling through the images.

And there are some further issues with the HyperDrive Colorspace:

• The power-on button is always active, so if you carry the unit in a bag or in your pocket, it could accidentally get turned on, which of course uses battery power.
• The unit locked up twice in 28 backup sessions. Luckily I didn’t lose any data.
• Instead of showing thumbnails of the images as they were being copied, the HyperDrive displayed “random noise” instead. This might be due to the fact that I shoot RAW without embedded JPGs, but it’s still annoying. This problem appears to have been solved with the newest firmware, V24-45-32.
• After finishing the backup, I sometimes got conflicting messages. The status read “complete” while the time was shown as “15′08″ (1 Sec. remaining)”. This too appears to have been solved with the newest firmware.
• Using the function “Build Thumbnails” requires about 11 seconds for each RAW image from my Canon 30D. If you are viewing the images in a folder sequentially, it takes only about a second to change to the next image (which is still way too long).
• The sales materials advertise that the HyperDrive will backup 1 GB per minute. Using full data verification my unit needs 6:23 for backing up 1 GB off a SanDisk Ultra II CF card.
• The battery indicator is inconsistent. At one point it was alternating every few seconds between 70% (green battery) and 20% (red battery). It took me a while to realize that the 20% were showing when the hard drive was spinning and the 70% when it was at rest.
• The commercials advertise that you can backup 120 GB on a single battery charge. Up to the point were I was getting the alternating 20%/70% battery status I’d backed up about 18 GB. I didn’t want to risk anything, so I charged the battery before continuing.
• I am not able to get my personal background and icons to show up even though I think I’m following the instructions exactly.

In conclusion I’d say the following. If my camera had the capability to write onto two cards simultaneously, I’d probably just dump the HyperDrive and keep a set of cards in my photo bag and a set of backup-cards in the hotel. Furthermore, due to the slow operation and inconvenient controls, I used the HyperDrive simply as a hard drive and not as an image viewer, and for that kind of usage the unit is simply too expensive.

On the positive side, the user manual is written quite well.

Back from India

I’m safe and sound and back from my second trip to India, which took place between March 12 and March 28, 2008. Before the trip I thought I’d travel by train and bus, but the first day was so hectic and chaotic, that I decided to rent a car instead. This way I was able to follow my own route and make my own schedule, so it was a good decision. Mind you, the only way to rent a car in India is with a driver, but considering the driving conditions there, that’s a good thing. I swear, the most important safety feature of an Indian car is its horn!

I spent the first and the last day in Delhi and during the remaining twelve days we drove 1650 km and visited Jhunjhunu, Mandawa, Jodhpur, Ranakpur, Udaipur, Ajmer, Pushkar, Jaipur and numerous places along the way. I wanted to see Jaisalmer too, but that would have extended my trip by 400 km, which in turn would have meant 2.5 extra days of sitting in the car instead of photographing, so I decided against it.

The trip was not an easy one. Traveling, even by car, is very taxing, and on the days on which I was not traveling, I usually got up before 7 am, photographed until about 1 pm, rested in the hotel until about 3 pm, then photographed again till sunset at 6:30. The weather was extremely dry, with temperatures of about 35° C (95° F) during the day and about 20° C (68° F) at night.

I didn’t visit any spectacular sights on this trip (no Taj Mahal or ghats in Varansi), so I mainly photographed people going about their daily business and what I call “still lives” — scenes of colorful inanimate objects. I came back with 1187 RAW images (9 GB of disk space) and I’m sorting through them right now. It will probably take me a month till I look at all images, perform basic edits and rate them with 1 to 5 stars.

Photographing people was relatively easy as many of them want you to take a photo of them. In many cases people asked me to come into their houses and photograph them and their families. They didn’t care about seeing or having the pictures, they just wanted me to photograph them. At the same time, being a foreigner with a fancy camera, I was always the center of attention. I was usually surrounded by a group of kids that made lots of noise and every time I wanted to take a picture they either jumped in front of the camera or in front of the person that I wanted to photograph. The only way that I found of dealing with this situation was to take a picture, let each kid take a look at the image, touch the camera, then quickly move away and hope that they won’t follow me.

The second problem was people smiling on the photos. No matter how poor or tired they were, or how hard their job was, as soon as they saw me, they stopped working, stared at me and smiled for as long as I was around. How do you take a candid photograph in such a situation?!

On the positive side, I felt very safe during the entire trip, regardless of when or where I was. OK, I got pretty tired of bargaining for everything I wanted or hearing how everything that I touched was made out of pure gold/silver/diamonds, but that’s another story.

The food was great too, but that’s because I ate where the locals ate and stayed away from the tourist places. Be very concerned if someone takes you to a restaurant with a souvenir shop inside! That’s a 100% guarantee of lousy food, bad service and ridiculous prices. At the beginning of the trip I was quite selective about what I was eating or drinking, but after a few days I started trying pakora and samosa and drinking juices and lassies from the local markets. Man, are these things tasty! And inexpensive — a freshly squeezed papaya/mango/pineapple juice costs only about 0.15 EUR!

Anyhow, if you are thinking of making a trip to India, simply go for it! Just be prepared for a bit of adventure and lots of great experiences!

B/W Portraits from India

What’s wrong with me?!?! I went to India, came back with 1187 images, and the first ones that I’m showing here are in black and white?!?! From the country that people go to to experience color ?!?!

The first thing that I did to my images was to group them according to their location (so I could apply metadata easily). But in any one location I took images of people, animals, buildings, temples, etc. and it just seemed right to group the people together, animals together and so on. So now I have directories according to the image content, and the first directory that I started organizing and editing was “portraits.” I started with about 100 images and after some light image editing, sorting and rating, I’m down to 62 images that I’ll probably end up keeping. Of those, the faces of the older people seemed the most expressive, and — you got it — older faces lend themselves very well to black and white.

So here are my four black-and-white portrait picks from the 2008 India images.