Technical Notes

 

Camera Equipment

 

I have been using Nikon cameras since 1972 with the purchase of a Nikkormat.  The camera bodies are both rugged and reliable.  The camera came with a 50mm f/2.0 lens and I later added a 105mm f/2.5 and 28mm f/3.5.  These were lenses produced in the days before auto focus or auto index features were available.  Shutter speed and aperture had to be set manually using either the through the lens or an external light meter.  All the lenses are well designed and give excellent resolution from wide open to stopped down at the smallest aperture.    My films of choice throughout this period were Kodachrome 64 and Tri-X. 

 

The move to digital photography began four years ago with the purchase of a Nikon D40x digital single lens reflex camera that came with a light weight zoom lens.  More recently I purchased a D300.  The body is more rugged than the D40x and the camera offers more control and flexibility.  The sensor is of a newer design with more pixels and features a self cleaning function to reduce the possibility of dust on the sensor.   Both of these cameras have sensors that are just over 23mm wide and which is not the same size as a 35mm negative.  Thus, only part of what comes through a 50mm lens actually hits the sensor.  This “crop factor” results in a picture angle equivalent to focal length of a 75mm lens. 

 

I was able to have all three of my old Nikkor lenses converted so that they can be used on the D300.  While they are not auto focus lenses, for much of my work this is not a problem.  For tripod-mounted landscape pictures auto focus is not needed.  Since I routinely shoot in aperture priority mode, I simply set the stop to f/8 and let the camera set the shutter speed.  A number of the images in the galleries were taken with the 50mm and 105mm lenses.  To compliment these, I purchased 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 DX and the 24mm f/2.8 D.  An added feature of the 16-85mm zoom is Vibration Reduction (VR) image stabilization that improves hand held use.  This minimizes camera shake, an important feature given the combined weight of the camera and lens.  These latter two lenses are great lenses to travel with if space and weight are a consideration, as they, the body and an extra battery pack will fit in a small camera bag. 

 

Processing

 

I capture all images in RAW format.  These are imported into Adobe Lightroom for cataloguing and processing.  For 95% of the pictures, Lightroom is all I need to develop the image to my satisfaction.  If there are some further manipulations I will go to Photoshop.

 

I have been gradually digitizing all my old images using a Nikon Cool Scan 5000 to convert black and weight negatives and color transparencies.  While this scanner gives good results, film grain (particularly with the Tri-X negatives) does restrict the size of digital prints that can be made.

 

Printer and Paper

 

All of my printing is done on an Epson R3880 photo stylus printer. This printer uses eight cartridges, including one black (which is automatically swapped depending on whether matte or glossy paper is being printed on), two shades of gray, two shades of magenta, yellow, and two shades of cyan (blue). The inks are Epson’s ultrachrome pigment formulation (K3) and they give outstanding results on a variety of papers. Images printed with this ink set will give viewers years of pleasure without fading as long as they are appropriately framed and not exposed to direct sunlight. This printer also has a special print driver for black and white images. It gives a darker black than the color print driver, giving black and white images of great range and tone depth. Additionally, the print driver makes it exceptionally easy to print sepia toned images.

 

There are many outstanding inkjet papers available today. In fact, one might argue that there are too many such that constant experimentation can drive one crazy. I have printed on about twenty different papers before settling on a handful that I like to print on and believe they do justice to the image. I do not care for extreme glossy paper and do not use it. I do like the 'F' type glossy papers and my printing on these papers is confined to Ilford Gold Fibre and Museo Silver Rag. Both perform well for both black and white and color printing. For matte finish, I like two Hahnemühle papers: Photo Rag Ultra Smooth and Bamboo (yes, it is a bamboo based paper with a pleasing warm tone to it) along with Museo Portfolio Rag and Textured Rag (a natural white water color paper with a textured surface, particularly good for landscapes and still lifes). In addition to the above mentioned papers, I also print on Museo artist card stock. Images on these matte finish cards may bring the art of note writing back into the mainstream, since simple e-mail cannot provide the reader with a pleasing image.

 

Useful Books

 

There are a great many available books on digital photography that cover every aspect from image capture to processing and printing.  I have found the following books quite useful in developing my skills:

 

Martin Evening’s two books, “The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book:  The Complete Guide for Photographers” and “Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers.”

 

Uwe Steinmeuller and Juergen Gulbins, “Fine Art Printing for Photographers” has good technical descriptions of all aspects of the printing process.

 

George DeWolfe, “B&W Printing:  Creating the Digital Master Print” discusses how Lightroom can be used to produce outstanding black and white images.  I did not pay any attention to the author’s new software tool that is supposed to improve the perceptual quality of the print.

 

Leslie Alsheimer and Bryan O'Neil Hughes, "Black and White in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Lightroom" covers all aspects of black and white transformation using the two key Adobe software products.

 

Andrew Rodney, "Color Management for Photographers" discusses all the aspects of color management from computer display to output printing. It is comprehensive and contains useful tutorials.

 

Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe, "Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom" is the authoritative text on how to sharpen digital images.

 

 

Websites of Interest

 

John White does conversions of older Nikon lenses so they can be used on the newer digital single lens reflex cameras.

 

The Luminous Landscape is a great resource for all things photographic and participants on its forum include many of the top experts in digital photography and printing.

 

Eric Chan's site is a wonderful reference on the Epson 3800 and 3880 printers. As a service to the photographic community, he also has prepared profiles for the Epson ABW print driver for many popular papers that give better Black and White images.

 

Thom Hogan runs a great site on all things related to Nikon and puts out great guides to Nikon cameras.

 

Keith Cooper has some good tutorials on black and white printing and one of the best test prints for gauging printer and paper performance.

 

Aardenburg Imaging & Archives is a subscription website that has print permanency data on numerous papers. Membership is inexpensive at $25/year and allows access to all the test data (a small number of test results are available at no cost). Ongoing support will ensure a continuation of this important project.

 

Wilhelm Imaging Research has good information on print permanency.