The Luminous Landscape Celebrating Our 15th Year Kilt Rock - Mealt Falls, November 2014 - Isle Of Skye, Scotland Fuji X-T1, 55-200mm at 74mm, f/8, 7.4 sec ISO 800, Lee Big Stopper by Kevin Raber There are Currently 184 Photographers Visiting The Luminous Landscape The contents of this site were last updated on 30 November, 2014 Michael's Phlog was just updated on October 21 lu-mi-nous (lue'muh nuhs) adj. 1. radiating or reflecting light; shining; bright. 2. clear; readily intelligible Welcome to The Luminous Landscape, the web’s most comprehensive site devoted to the art and technique of photography. The Publisher of this site is Kevin Raber Expose Right (article de 2003) On my recent workshop in Iceland (July, 2003) I had a fascinating chat with Thomas Knoll about signal to noise ratios in digital photography. You may recognize Thomas' name — he is the original author of Adobe Photoshop, and also the author of Camera RAW. (A discussion with Thomas is featured in The Luminous Landscape Video Journal, Issue #6, from the Fall of 2002 when I was reviewing a pre-production Canon EOS-1Ds). But I digress. We spent a lot of time chatting about digital topics during our 3,000 km drive around Iceland, and Thomas elaborated on one that had not occurred to me before, though once I started thinking about it makes perfect sense. Clouds and V Formation. Canon 1Ds with 70-200mm f/2/8L IS lens at ISO 400 Home on The Dynamic Range Let's assume for the purposes of illustration that a digital SLR has a dynamic range of 5 stops (it's usually closer to 6 stops, but let's not quibble). A 12 bit image is capable of recording 4,096 (2^12) discrete tonal values. Why? The Lesson
How Lytro's Weird Design Tells A Story About Revolutionary Tech | Co. Design If you had to give an award for the year’s most breakthrough piece of consumer tech, there’s a good chance it would go to Lytro, a camera company which recently unveiled its first product. Unlike other cameras, you never need to focus it. Rather, the images it takes are interactive--you can change their focus later, meaning that you can take pictures of a fleeting moment without having to check whether the right thing was in the picture. And because the camera never needs focusing or adjustments, it never has any shutter lag. It is truly just a point and shoot. [An actual Lytro image. Many tech-savvy people have gone gaga over that promise. This is perhaps Lytro’s defining feature, and the design tells two stories: One, about the underlying technology. From the outset, the project was faced with some extreme constraints. The only catch, of course, is that the Lytro’s sensors require a ton of light to work well--and thus, the Lytro camera requires a huge lens.
Primed: Why your camera's sensor size matters Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. The first thing I look for when purchasing a camera is something most aren't even aware of. It's not the brand name or the quality of the lens, the touch screen technology or the LCD screen size, and not the array of functions it offers or shooting presets available – it's the size of the image sensor. Table of Contents Image Sensor 101 Leaving the evolutionary branch of film Where we are now What to look for and why What your camera might be packin' in the future Wrap-up In today's digital SLR camera, the image sensor is what film was to a 35mm SLR camera. There's some dispute as to who created the first digital camera – some say Texas Instruments is to thank. Detail Quality and detail go hand in hand.
How to Read and Use Histograms The histogram is a useful but often misunderstood tool that your camera provides to help you get the correct exposure on your images. In this article we’re going to look at how to read it and use it to your advantage to help you do just that. Getting the best exposure (there is not such thing as the “correct” exposure, as it’s all subjective) in camera should be your goal every time you click the shutter. Using these tips should help you increase your success rate. What is a histogram? Dictionary definition: A bar graph of a frequency distribution in which the widths of the bars are proportional to the classes into which the variable has been divided and the heights of the bars are proportional to the class frequencies. HUH?! How to read the Histogram A histogram is a graphical representation of the pixels exposed in your image. What can we learn from this histogram? There are many things we can learn about an image just by looking at the histogram. This one shows the opposite. Is it wrong?
The 15 Minute Makeover: Photoshop Beauty Retouching Skin needs to be retouched. Even beautiful skin with great makeup. The problem with most of the Photoshop techniques I’ve experimented with over the years (burning & dodging individual pores, Surface Blur filter, Dust and Scratches filter, etc.) is they take too long, aren’t very convincing, or - worst of all - make the subject look like a victim of plastic surgery gone bad. In this article I’m going to show you a combination of techniques I regularly use that results in beautiful, smooth skin that still looks totally real. Our workflow follows three basic stages. 1. 2. 3. Before we get started I want you to beware of and avoid what I call Photographer’s Tunnel Vision - that compulsive desire to do the fun stuff first. The first tools we'll be reaching for are the Clone Stamp Tool and Spot Healing Brush. Stage 1: Retouch Obvious Blemishes and Imperfections Create a new, empty pixel layer above the Background layer to receive the retouching. Why not retouch right on the Background layer?
Missing Pages: Aperture and Shutter Priority Tips for Using Your Camera Creatively by Jon Sienkiewicz , April 2009 (updated November 2009) Introduction | I: ISO Setting | II: Program AE | III : Aperture & Shutter Priority | IV: White Balance | V: Depth of Field | VI: Bracketing | VII : Megapixels | VIII : Flash Modes column is a collection of all of the information that should have been included in your camera’s Owner’s Manual—but somehow got left out. It’s sort of a juiced-up User Guide for creative people who are not necessarily technical. We will explain complex technical subject matter a way that everyone can understand. Installment III : Aperture & Shutter Priority Definition: exposure modes that provide more control than Program AE but less than Manual mode. Shutter Priority is an auto exposure system in which the camera achieves correct exposure by selecting the aperture after the user has selected the shutter speed. Each system has its own set of distinct advantages and disadvantages. Aperture Priority Shutter Priority More
Fine Tune Your Exposures With Spot Metering The metering systems of today’s digital cameras are light years beyond cameras of just 10 to 15 years ago. What this means is that in many situations, the camera’s meter, left to its own devices, is going to do an excellent job at getting a good exposure. While evaluative (or matrix) metering and center-weighted average metering take into account the entire scene, albeit in different ways, spot metering mode provides a tool for metering only the part of the scene you as the photographer consider most important. I used spot metering on this image due to the sun setting over her shoulder, making the sun and sand exceptionally bright behind her. Spot metering is especially helpful when the subject is much brighter or darker than the background, and the subject does not make up a majority of the image. When I saw this shot I immediately knew what I wanted. I was shooting the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park when I spied this couple sitting on a rock.
Ever Wanted to Know How a Pro Gets “That Look” in a Shot? « Light Stalking I'm Rob, the editor of Light Stalking. I try to keep this ship on course. By Admin on in Photography Product Reviews Recently, we were lucky enough to receive a review copy of Kevin Kubota’s Lighting Notebook from the good folks who work with Kevin. It’s a new addition to Kevin’s already impressive work in education material and we have been going through it quite thoroughly. For those of you who like the detail of a “how to” guide when trying to figure out how certain images are taken, then this might well be for you. Kevin Kubota’s Lighting Notebook – 101 Lighting Styles and Setups for Digital Photographers Publisher: Wiley So what’s it all about and who is it for? Who is Kevin? What Is the Lighting Notebook? What’s In It? Each setup is set out in a very logical way. Accompanying that is the relevant information that so many people seem to want to know about any good photograph. Every lighting setup gives you the exact blueprint that you would need to replicate the effect for yourself.