Upgraded to Photoshop CS4

The mailman brought a small and extremely light package to my door today — a Photoshop CS4 upgrade.  I was running CS2 till now, so I’m getting lots of new features for the price of the upgrade.  I guess I’m mostly excited about the clarity and vibrance sliders, the black-and-white conversion capabilities as well as smart filters.

Now when will Jeff Schewe release a Real World Camera Raw for CS4?

NOTE !!! Be aware that by upgrading you will lose your custom keyboard shortcuts and your actions. For me it’s too late now, but you should think ahead of time and do the following before starting with the upgrade: select an action set, click on the tiny triangle in the palette’s title bar, then choose “save actions”.  You will have to repeat these steps for each set of actions.

Back to Photography

Some of my friends think that I spend too much time with photography, in all its forms.  But there is another hobby, better called passion, that affects me even deeper — listening to music.

About three months ago I decided that my (very average) home-theater system is not good enough for stereo listening.  And so I got bit by the Hi-Fi Bug.  First thing I realized is that I don’t know a thing about hi-fi.  So I read about it on the Internet, got a thick book, read the book, read lots of magazine articles, visited a few stores, went to a hi-fi trade fair.

But all that just made me even more confused.  At one point I decided that I should just keep my old system.  Then I decided that since I spend most of my hobby-time in front of the computer, I should probably upgrade the sound of my computer.  I learned about DACs and sound cards and I tried some equipment at home.  But I discovered that I cannot listen to music in an involved way and sort or edit photos at the same time.

So the hi-fi had to go in the living room after all.  Good, but at what price level?  Hi-fi starts at the level of a Canon 5D mark II + 24-105/4 IS and can go above Canon 1Ds mark III + 600/4 IS + a two-week trip to Antarctica.  But the good news is that hi-fi easily lasts 15 years, does not easily go obsolete and gives you great pleasure every day.  After much soul-searching I chose a Naim system consisting of a second-hand CD5x, new Nait 5i and second-hand Allae.  In photographic terms that’s like a Canon 50D, one step above entry-level and 3 steps down from top-of-the-line.

The system is finally up and running, and I notice how my whole being is looking forward to getting back to photography!  I have several ideas and I’ll probably turn the first one into reality next week.

But maybe the very first step — sort of easing myself back into photography again — should be to photograph all those things in the two large piles in my living room that I intend to put up for auction on eBay soon.  It’s mostly audio equipment, CDs, some photography books and a Canon EF 400/5.6 L.

Sticking with a Project

I love the way water glasses break up light into highlights and shadows. I’ve already photographed a few interesting glasses, and I’m always on the lookout for other ones. Recently I noticed an interesting pattern that a glass was making when filled with the appropriate amount of water, but unfortunately I was in a restaurant and didn’t have a camera with me.

My first thought was that it would be inappropriate to go back there with the camera, but I also hated missing the opportunity, so there I was yesterday — having breakfast at the same place with my camera bag and tripod resting next to me. Cause for the interesting reflexions are multiple lights on the ceiling, so I could not easily repeat the shot anywhere else.

Anyhow, after finishing my breakfast I quietly pulled out a larger piece of white paper as background, centered the glass, filled it with water and took out the camera. It was too dark for shooting hand-held, so I set up the tripod. I did everything while sitting at the table, with the tripod between the table and my chair. I didn’t think that anyone even noticed what I was doing, and I was done in a couple of minutes. As I was leaving a waitress asked me if I’d gotten nice pictures, so apparently someone was watching. But she was very nice about it and might even get a small print of the following image.

The fact that I went back for just that one image seems to show that I care about the subject more that I want to admit to myself. So maybe I should put together a small portfolio with the better images that I’ve gathered so far… In the meanwhile, take a look at this post for a few more examples.