Kent Shafer

Hail. D800E, 24-70.

Two from the University of Minnesota Arboretum. Leica M3, 50mm Summicron, yellow filter, Pan F Plus 50 in PMK Pyro.

Maze

Hostas

Nikon F, 105mm f/2.5.

Brown (grizzly) bear at the Minnesota Zoo. M3, 50 Summicron w/ yellow filter, Pan F Plus 50 in PMK Pyro.

Kids learning about beekeeping at the University of Minnesota Arboretum.

M3, 50mm Summicron with yellow filter, 1/125 @ f/5.6, Pan F Plus 50, PMK Pyro.

No eclipse pictures here, just granddaughters. D800E, 35mm f/1.4 Sigma Art, ISO 4000, 1/160 @ f/2.8.

Leica M3, 90mm Summicron, 1/125 @ f/2.8, Pan F Plus 50 in PMK Pyro.

Mainly, I used the "Clone" tool in Photoshop.

 

I have been told that there are other methods to achieve a similar outcome, but I learned how to use many aspects of the Clone Tool from the outset of my conversion to Digital Photography and thus, the Digital Darkroom processes. Photoshop was my first digital editor and I think that I often default to it because of that, often simulating a mimic of how I would have used film enlarging/printing or print retouching.

 

To achieve a good outcome, I have to work in small areas and the bigger the original file the better. The various functions of the Clone Tool can be used to both remove and rebuild areas of an image. The result is dependent upon the time taken (and of course the skill), but time and patience are very important.

 

Removing the Flash shadows was truly a 15 minute "rough" - kind of easy because the file was relatively small, but by the same token those results I posted are only good to a small enlargement size (maybe would be OK for a 5x7 inch print) and would probably not stand close scrutiny at a greater enlargement (e.g. greater than 10 inches on the long side) - but with a good copy file from a quality scan or a well executed copy image (using a camera and copy lens and copy lighting), I have had very good results from old prints, exceeding the "quality" (rough word for definition, clarity and acutance) of the original print at the same enlargement size: but that degree of removing and (especially) 'rebuilding' does take some dedicated time.

 

The technique of 'rebuilding' what was never there is also useful to fix Photographer error.

 

In the example below - in my haste to catch the train, I made the mistake of not framing all the house (top right corner is missing) and in addition to cleaning out all the "stuff" that I didn't like, I needed to rebuild that top right bit of the house and of course then rebuild all the other parts of the image underneath it.

 

The final product holds to good scrutiny at a 24" (long side) print.

 

Here is an A/B:

 

 

"Yellow House on the Corner" Austria 2014

(Fuji x100s)

 

WW

Sorry I didn't check back sooner—thanks for the help!

Same setup except with yellow filter, 1/125 @ f/2.8. I'm liking the PMK Pyro!

Leica M3, 50mm Summicron, 1/60 @ f/2. Pan F Plus 50 in PMK Pyro. This is my first time using pyro—thanks Rick and others for the inspiration!

D800E, 300mm f/4 D AF-S, TC-14EII, ISO 2500, 1/800 @ f/11.

Captured with the lowish-cost, low-mass Coolpix P7000—a bit of a "decisive moment."

removed flash shadows

Removing those flash shadows made a big difference. Could you please explain how you did it?

D800E, 85mm f/1.4 AF-D lens @ f/2.8.

No aliens for me either. Just the good old Coolpix P7000.

Kent, that is an interesting looking building.

Shun, it was the first skyscraper designed by Minoru Yamasaki. According to Wikipedia, it features some of the same design elements he later used in the World Trade Center.

Though not recent, here's one that follows Matt's skilled worker theme. Mine was also shot with a 35mm f/1.4 lens, though in this case it was the old manual focus, non-AI version, AI'd by John White, on a D700.

One Woodward Avenue, Detroit. Shot with the good old Coolpix P7000 that's always in my briefcase.

Just in case anyone ever looks at this thread again, a couple of final points:

• My information relates to the automatic (and unwanted by me) zooming performed by the Photos app on some images without any double-tapping or stretching.
  
• I did the tests on an iPad mini 2 with iOS 10.3.2. Other devices or future software updates might behave differently.
  

A while ago a talented Verizon salesman sold me an iPad mini 2 that I didn't really want or need. Now that I have it, I thought I might as well load some photos to show off on its pretty screen. I decided to make jpegs specifically optimized for that purpose.

I sync my photos to the iPad using iTunes on a PC.

Because the screen is reasonably wide even in its shortest dimension, I decided to make all my jpegs based on the assumption that the viewer would keep the iPad in its vertical (portrait) position all the time rather than turning it back and forth depending on the aspect ratio of the picture.

The iPad mini 2 screen is 1536 x 2048 pixels, with 326 pixels per inch resolution. This meant that I would make all landscape format photos 1536 pixels wide, letting the height fall where it may. I would make portrait format photos 2048 pixels high unless the width came out to more than 1536, in which case I would make them 1536 pixels wide.

This worked out fine until I discovered an iPad software bug (feature?), which is this: If a picture is pretty close to the same aspect ratio as the screen, the software zooms in to completely fill the frame, cropping off some of the picture, either from the sides or the top and bottom. (How close is "pretty close"? See below.)

This was not acceptable. I crop my pictures exactly as I want them to appear and don't want some piece of software second guessing me. If one double-taps the screen to zoom in on the picture, then double-taps again to zoom back out, the picture is displayed correctly: full-sized, with black bars filling out the unused edges of the screen. But the viewer would have to do this every time for every picture having this issue, which would be a pain in the neck and also not acceptable to me.

I am obviously not the first person to discover this bug/feature. Googling brings up various discussions but no cure that I could find.

The solution for me was to add my own black bars to the edges (left and right or top and bottom) to fill out the whole 1536 x 2048 frame when necessary. And when is it necessary?

By trial and error, I discovered that a picture that's a full 2048 pixels high and 1396 pixels or fewer wide will display correctly. But make it even one pixel wider than 1396, and the software zooms in, cropping the top and bottom of the image.

Going the other way, an image that is 1536 pixels wide and up to 1860 pixels high displays correctly. Any image taller than 1860 gets cropped from the left and right.

So the bottom line for me was this:

Of course, one could just pad every image out to the full 1536 x 2048, but that would bloat some files unnecessarily. And anyway it was more fun to figure this out.

I'm in the same boat as Gary, but sometimes looking through the camera while wearing glasses doesn't work very well either. Usually you can't see the whole frame, and some older cameras (the Nikon S for example) have nasty metal eyepieces that scratch your glasses.

If you do resort to frequent donning and removal of spectacles, you can try hanging them around your neck with a cord, which can impart an intellectual and artistic air, as it does for this fellow.

[Edit: The words "this fellow" contain a hyperlink, which doesn't show up very well on my computer.]

A Nikon F + F36 Motor Drive + Cordless Battery Back provides a (U.S.) standard household socket that is a simple switch for triggering the camera. People used to construct homebrewed radio control devices to plug into it, but nowadays it seems like a PocketWizard with the MH1 cord would be simplest.

(Though is a Nikon F still a "classic manual camera" when we attach a motor drive?)

PocketWizard also makes a cord (HBM3) for triggering a Hasselblad 500EL, 500ELM, or 500ELX.