Way to Go Meb!!!
Photoshop / LR / LR mobile $9.99!
Do Front Filters Matter?
“Do you use filters to protect your lenses?” This is a real common question which to be honest with you, I’m often hesitant to answer. Because 50% of the time, the conversation quickly turns into resolution charts, lists of photographers who don’t and how the image quality is degraded by using the filter. Yes, I use filters to protect all my lenses that accept filters. Yes, technically, I’m sure that there is some degradation of the image quality. And no, I’ve never had a photo buyer say, “I’d use your photo but you used a filter to protect you lens and I can see the image quality suffer because of it!
Now I spent over a half an hour moving the light around so you could see the micro scratches on this filter above and the reason why I’m writing this post. The reason for this post is to talk about why I just ordered a whole new set of filters for my lenses just two years after the current set was purchased. And that’s because there are micro scratches on the filters rendering them ineffective. Micro scratches that without the filters, would have been on the front element of my lenses! Which is easier to replace, the Nikon NC 77mm filter or the front element of the 24f1.4AFS? Which costs less? Where do the micro scratches come from? I have no doubt from cleaning them in the field when they get wet with my infamous white towel. But then, that’s why I have a filter so I can do just that. Why swap them out? Those micro scratches defrac the light so I get lens flare when otherwise, I shouldn’t. So, I use filters, will continue to use filters, I sell lots of images and sell lots of 24×30 prints all shot through those filters. To me, filters are our best friend protecting, our best friends!
What I Used at PSW – Wacom 13HD
I’ve had a number of folks who came to my Landscape Class at Photoshop World ask what I was using when finishing images. I had the Mac Retina and the Wacom 13HD. I never leave home without either! They both have the same footprint, they both fit in the Think Tank 2nd Brain and they both greatly speed up my work in the digital darkroom. As you can see in the video, the Wacom 13HD is a portable Cintiq, a monitor and tablet combined into one unit. It’s pretty darn cool technology and as you saw in class, it permits great speed and creativity. So there’s your answer to what I was using on stage.
GearHead Wednesday 14-14
Got a gear question you want/need answered? I want to help and answer it. Send your gear questions to me at Gear Questions and I’ll do my best every Wednesday to answer as many questions as I can. Some interesting and common questions this week, so thanks for sending them all! Keep in mind the answers are just my $.02 worth and you have to take what works for you and your photography and embrace it and ignore the rest. So here’s this weeks questions ….
Moose
I have been to a DLWS and then you were editing with Dell computers, but now I see you have switched to Mac for a mobile choose. I use a Mac for mobile and PC at home. My Dell is coming to end of life and I want to change to a Mac at home as well. What do you use at the office to edit with or what would you recommend. I like the new Mac Pro but it is a bit pricey.
Thanks
Jerry
Jerry, yeap, I was and still am a Win user. There is one Win machine left in our office and it’s the digital darkroom / asset machine. Why? One, it still works perfectly fine and two, it’s much easier to print from a Win machine than a Mac machine. Since I was only home 47 days in 2013, the Retina is by far the most used digital darkroom machine for me and it rocks. As for the new Mac Pro, I like the idea but not the price. Personally, I will more than likely get another Retina to work for my desktop. It has tons of powers and with a simple app, can disappear in the background and just do the heavy lifting.
Good Day Mr. Moose
After following your blog for a few months now, I am interested in your storage philosophy. Do you have a truck load of CD/DVD’s in a safe? A similar number of hard drives? Do you allow your work to reside offsite in a storage facility, or even in a cloud??? I am guessing you have exposed between 500k and 1 million photos in you career. Also how do you catalog them all???
Thanks
Vanilla
-Vanilla, the digital library is coming up on 3mil images total now. The library is simple Buffalo NAS units (photo is of the rabbit hutch a few years back, now there are 5 16TB boxes). No off site, no cloud, no Dvds, all reside on the NAS units. My filing is very simple and based on our conventional files as they are still very relevant. It’s a alpha numeric system I made up back in 1981 and still use.
Moose,
I am so inspired by your photography and feel really fortunate to be able to ask questions of you and tap your vast knowledge of photography. This is a gear question, albeit very specific, about aviation gear. I have read Taking Flight several times and alway learn something new with each read. In it you mention that gloves are essential for comfort at altitudes and sometimes for hand signals to the subject from the photo platform if radio or communication is out, or if there is a problem. What gloves do you use and where did you purchase them? I am getting ready to do my first air-to-air and would like to get your input.
Regards,
Patrick
-Patrick, thanks for the kind words! If you can find them, red colored gloves would be the best for those times when communication breaks down and you need to use hand signals. I got the ones I’m currently using from Amazon, just search on aviator gloves. My current gloves are tan Blackhawk.
A question raised this week caused me to ponder the long lenses. Mileage varies for each of us and so not asking for specific recommendations, but more on guidance on what you have found in using the big lenses over the years. Most of us cannot afford the latest VR big glass and except for maybe a special trip or planned event rental may no be the best answer or even practical. So where are the best compromises made from your experience to keep the cost where average joe can get in the game. I do not mean to limit any choices but as an example the new 80-400mm AF-S gives you auto focus and VR but is a little slow and maybe a little short on reach for birds and some other stuff, the older MF 400mm f3.5 or maybe better the MF 500mm f4 gives the speed, isolation and reach but no AF or VR or 300mm AF f2.8 with converters gives everything but the VR and all are roughly in the same ballpark cost wise except for the 400mm f3.5 which is much cheaper. So from someone who has been there and done that if the latest AF-S VR exotic (200-400, 500mm or whatever) is a real stretch – were are the wisest compromises made or ask anyway given you have used them all if you were force to shed those features what would you lose first VR, AF, reach or speed/isolation. Again knowing mileage varies, but as you have gone from the MF to the latest and greatest – what is nice to have verses what is if not must have at least really do not want to do without. Or is the total package of the latest – with AF-S, VR, better coating, better glasses just worth sucking it up. I know this has no right or wrong answer and a lot depends on who, when and where, but there are not many out there who have spanned the years and used it all such as yourself.
Leonard
-Leonard, great question and one that is asked a lot of me so I know there are many with the same feelings. And I regret I have no answer for you or others along this vane. The key word in all of this to me is compromise. Compromising in my photography is just something I have never allowed myself and have pushed and sacrificed in tools and technique. Everything you mention is totally viable and if you’ve already thought of all those options, then I would think you already have your answer. All the “older” gear delivers, we know this because back when it was the latest and greatest, it delivered. I have no doubt it still can deliver the image quality but the perfect lens for ones photographs has to start here, not end here. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
GearHead Wednesday 14-13
Got a gear question you want answered? I want to help and answer it. Send your gear questions to me at Gear Questions and I’ll do my best every Wednesday to answer as many questions as I can. Lots of great questions this week and a couple didn’t copy over for on the road, so thanks for sending them all with some getting answered next week! Keep in mind the answers are just my $.02 worth and you have to take what works for you and your photography and embrace it and ignore the rest. So here’s this weeks questions ….
Moose –
I have an opportunity to fly in a small plane from Lone Pine to Lee Vining so I can take some general landscape shots of the Sierra crest. I’m wanting to get pictures of the Whitney area, the Palisade Glacier, the Minarets, Mono Lake, etc. I also want to get general context shots of each of the communities in the valley showing the Sierra crest in the background. I’m not likely to get a chance like this again, so I can’t experiment and go back later if my shots don’t turn out. Do you have any suggestions or tricks for shooting though a window of a moving plane? I assume I want fast shutter speeds, do I attempt to pan with the speed of the plane, any special filters to use? I’ve got a D800e and I assume my 24-70 and 70-200 will be the lenses to go with.
Thanks,
Don
-Don, what a great opportunity! Since this is GearHead Wed, I’m going to talk about the gear first. To be honest with you, that’s not a great body choice. Reason, couldn’t find a slower camera with a smaller buffer if you tried. When you’re flying, you have that chance for the shot just once and that is a split second. If you see “the” shot you and you don’t get it the first time, that’s it. While the D800e captures tons of detail, it don’t do it fast.
The lens selection is right on! The 24-70AFS and 70-200VR2 are perfect! Just be sure you’re not shooting in AF mode but Manual mode. Again, has to do with speed. If the camera looses focuses and starts searching, the photo might be gone. You don’t change altitude that much so once you have focus, you’ll have focus.
When it comes to technique, you have to be concerned about reflections from the inside the window. At the same time, the plex is real soft so you can’t scratch it. First, clean the inside of the plex. Next, use a rubber, collapsed rubber shade to protect the plex. Lastly, cut the sleeve off a black sweatshirt and stick the lens through the sleeve and push it up against the plex to block all reflections. Lastly, have fun!
Hello Moose,
I have a number of Nikkor AF lenses, all of which work perfectly on my D7100 with the exception of one – my 18-200mm.
Nikon claims that it is set to their “Factory Standard” but it still gives me a soft image at 70 mm, sharp at 100 mm and poor at 200 mm. And on any given day that may change. The AF Fine-tune does not help. Have you ever experienced this, and is there a solution? Also, how often, and how do you check to see if your zoom lenses are working up to par?
My sincere thanks for your help and for the great photography insight that you share with all of us.
Mr B from Chicago
-B from Chicago, sounds like you have one helluva dilemma! I have not had that issue and this is the first time I’ve heard of it. It sounds like there is an element out of alignment from impact. I would send it back to Nikon to have it checked.