Shooting RAW

Having owned my Nikon D70 for one year (just reached 15,000 photos) I just realised I haven't even used the RAW shooting mode. The main reason being was I was happy with the results from the camera and only tinkered with photos slightly. This week I decided to shoot in RAW as I have more time to fiddle with each photo as it's holiday time.

What this means is each photo I take is now 4-5MB instead of 2 and each photo will need to be post processed in another program. This is very time consuming. The other problem is now choice. I can import my photos using Photoshop, Bibble, DxO or Nikon Capture. (Mac users can also use Aperture) The problem here lies is each program processes the images differently. While I praised DxO earlier about it enhancing my photos with RAW files it actually destroys a lot of the detail in them.

The best program (I haven't tested Nikon Capture yet) is Photoshop CS2. You have the most control over the image and can create a jpeg without processing the image at all if wanted. DxO no matter what I tried always tried to remove some noise resulting in lost detail. But unless you view the image at 100% you don't notice too much.

Below is an huge image I created to show the difference each program puts on an image. All setting can be tweaked and again I preferred Photoshop's settings and ease of use. I also liked the colour cast PS created.

What ended up happening with me was I imported each image into all 3 programs to see what the end result is. The shitty part is each program gave good results on different images.

DxO always removed detail from images but for macro photos or when you didn't care about the tiny background textures DxO made really punchy images. DxO was the only one without any really good zoom function so you never really saw what effect your sharpening had on the image until you processed it. (LAME) If I had to choose what program I'd go with Photoshop but I liked having all 3 to test.

Bibble always proceed very flat but authentic photos. You could then tweak the curves if you wanted something more punchy. But this would be best if the photo you shot was already great and needed little tweaking. Bibble also got a few more extra pixels from my photos? I got photos 3028x2002 above the normal 3008x2000. I'm not sure why Bibble was the only program to grad those extra pixels from my photo.

PS CS2 was the easiest for me to use but didn't always produce the image I liked.

PS doesn't have lens distortion but you can get free plugins. DxO does and I think Bibble has a plugin for this.

I haven't done any tripod tests with JPEG to RAW shooting modes but I can definetly notice the amount of control you have on a RAW image. I'm still trying to figure out if it's worth all the time and effort. If I had to shoot something for a work project or large print I'd definitely go RAW but for most of my photos I'm thinking JPEG is the way to go. Or i'll be up to 4am every night tweaking EV values and sharpening photos.

What sucks was that there was no clear winner for the programs. Luckily I own iView which made quick work of RAW thumbnails. I'll test Nikon Capture (i accidently downloaded the update not the app) and see how that fares.

2005 A Year In Review

2005 was one of the most exciting years for me. Not only did I turn 25 and can now easily hire a rental car but I moved out of Ashfield for an inner city apartment. I will not list in point form major events that happened to me during 2005 as I know I will forget what a great year this was. I'm a little hazy before August as my blog entries from OCt 04 - August 05 were deleted.

• Moved to Chippendale and finally out of Ashfield. I don't miss the trains.
  
• Attended Andy's wedding in Indonesia .
  
• Soap moved into our own office in Ultimo deciding to purchase rather than rent after securing the deposit and a good position to continue our empire :)
  
• Soap went from a staff of 6 to 11 with a few leaving or being asked to leave in between. Right now we have a very strong team with no "dead wood". Two more staff to join in January 2006
  
• Attended the 2005 ARIA awards and got within 10mtrs of The Hoff
  
• I was asked to be on the jury for D&AD 2006. Graciously accepted :)
  
• Moved to a PC laptop after 7 years of MAC worship. I miss expose and that's about it.
  
• Bought a PSP
  
• Did a talk at Wagga Wagga on the importance of personal work/experimentation and your career.
  
• Had my first viral photo with The Fly getting over 80,000 views in a month.
  
• Had my blog deleted by my host in the USA. After 5 years he decided to do a runner with everyone's money and delete my files. That's why there is a 10 fucking month gap in my archives!
  
• Started www.bannerblog.com.au which is just now reaching it's stride. The initial site was also deleted by the crazy web host in the USA.
  
• Moved over to wearing underpants full time after many years of wearing boxers.
• Soap won awards at Desktop Create Awards, AWARD, Internet Awards and was in the interactive annual for Communication Arts & D&AD.
  
• Cashed in my years of Subway Stamps
  
• Was nearly beaten up coming out of my favorite restaurant in Canterbury. Yay for the police.
  
• Got back from my long trip in Indonesia during which the Tsunami hit (the other side of Indo luckily)
  
• Visited Melbourne, Perth, Wagga Wagga, Singapore as well as Indonesia twice
  
• Almost converted to Muslim. That's top of my list for 2006
  
• Attended an Easter Royal show, Crusty Demons X, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and Auto Salon and didn't hate them both. Although I don;t plan on ever going to one again.
  
• Got violently sick from some dodgy food court food. Vomited on the bathroom marble that actually left a permanent mark on the marble!
  
• Attended the launch of the new A-League (Australian soccer league)
  
• I paid for less than half of the movies I saw this year. By having Fox as a client and also a friend who is the security guard at George St cinemas I managed to save a heap on cinema tickets. A big thanks to Julian and Fred!
  
• Saw Into the Blue, Night Watch and In Her Shoes at the Fox Studios private screening room
  
• Missed the media premier of Star Wars as I directed the guys to the wrong cinema!!! Saw it at the premier 11 days later.
  
• Saw Mr & Mrs Smith and Fantastic Four at the media premier at George St. Margaret and David Stratton don't sit next to each other.
  
• Stayed at level 68 at World Tower in Sydney.
  
• 
  

Ultimate Earthmover

I saw this Earth Mover in a powerpoint document. This has to be the most insane man made object ever! I'd love to see one of these babies up close. It feel like War of the Worlds.

You can see more photos and some links in this forum post. Insane!

They said it was made by Tysennkrupp the lift manufacturer although none of those links worked.

DxO

I had a quick play around with the DxO Optice Pro 3.5 app for enhancing images. I was blow away at how easy and quick it was to use. I usually pump my curves pretty high on many images to give a more saturated feel but with DxO i can do that and more while reducing noise and lens barrel distortion.

While some of the alterations are subtle the qualuty of the final image always looks better than tweaking with photoshop. This is with a standard JPEG, I don't shoot RAW but I will for a week to see the difference. This should provide even better results.

The best part is you can easily batch the alterations and have it rename files for you. That and having complete control over the chnages or setting everything on Auto.

Here's an image i spent a few minutes working on in photoshop compared with the one DxO did in seconds. The DxO version is much nicer. Although the vignetting I kinda like this could have been left in.

Here's another image that would have required a fair amount of masking and for me wasn't worth it for this image. But DxO makes short work of it. What you can't see in these tiny gif versions is that the sharpening and noise reduction really enhance the image when viewing at 100% and i suspect when printing.

I still like the look when you increase the contrast via the curves and over saturate the images luckily this can be done in DxO aswell. It's Mac and PC and for $150 USD covers most DSLR's and lens.

Chuck DVD Player

Sometimes real life if wierder than fiction. No more so than this Chuck Norris DVD player. It protects your kids from harmful content. I'm not sure if he steps up and roundhouses your kids in the eyes to do this but even if not, this is a weird ass DVD player.

See what else Chuck has to offer here at MAX

The Hoff actually had a cimilar product but it only showed you beach babes and hair chested men. It wasn't as popular.

Lame Joke

Cool name for a ad firm

one car creative

say it a few times fast

Soap Xmas

Soap Xmas, View my Flickr stream here.

Have a very tone deaf Xmas from Soap Creative
www.soap.com.au/xmas05

Macromedia Crap Site of the Day

Macromedia Crap Site of the Day, View my Flickr stream here.

We finally got a site we did (www.samsung.com/au/theinsidejob) listed on the Macromedia Site of the Day on the worldwide site. We had previously a few under the Asia Pacific subdomain but none here. We were quite chuffed.

But today I saw the next day's winner and felt like someone was taking the piss.

www.graphicvisionsinc.com/holiday

It didn't even send me the tree I made :(

Assumption of our Lady

DSC_4766, View my Flickr stream here.

Next time somone makes fun of mormans and scientologiest for being idiots just remember that pretty much every religion is full of fruitcakes and stupid beliefs.

The assumption of our lady sounds like a bad goth metal band name.

Name of the Week

Paul Pijnappel
Manager Travel Advantage
American Express International, Inc.

Pineapple is one of my fav fruit.

Runner up for this weeks funniest name was Romyl Saladar which sounds like a side dish you order at a Klingon cafe.

Coming in third was Van Tran which was an 80's band was it not?

Good Ol' Undies

After 15 or so years of wearing boxer shorts I have gone back to undies. After being the strong advocate for boxers for many years I have now found the joys of having my boys secure.

King Kong

I saw King Kong last night on the opening night and thought it was the best monkey movies I've seen all year.

Jack Black was my fav but everyone in the film is great. Kong looks great as do all the effects.

It's sad, its funny and its cheesy but it's all good cheese. Oh and it's 3 hrs long but you enjoy all of it.

Just don't try and understand how Kong stops from breaking Naomi Watts' neck as he swings her around violently or how a person can outrun almost every animal in the dense jungle and you'll be fine.

Is Chuck Norris the new Hoff?

Now that the Hoff has started to cash in on his internet fame it all seems a little old. With the recent string of Chuck Norris facts I think we could have the new hero to pass the baton too.

On paper Chuck is far superior to The Hoff. Here are a few things to consider

1: Chuck Norris has rumbled with Bruce Lee!
2: Chuck is not only a movie star but also has 203 episodes of Walker Texas Ranger under his belt... um beard.
3: He's been lying low lately with a small cameo in Dodgeball (also starring The Hoff)
4: Chuck has a beard. The Hoff hasn’t even managed a moe or sideburns.
5: His real name is Carlos Ray Norris. How cool is that!
6: How much wood can Chuck Norris Chuck?

I look forward to 2006 becoming The Year of the Roundhouse as we see the Hoff perish in a a fury of Chuck Roundhouses. If you could buy shares in Chuck right now it'd be a safe investment. They must be worth 2c right now?

Soaperheroes Final

Soaperheroes Final, View my Flickr stream here.

This is our new staff illustrations. We had robots, then monsters, then 80's characters and now Superheroes. View through flickr for a larger version which looks really shmick.

Here's the few that didnt make the cut. First is the lesbian goth version of me, then Mikes Silver Surfer and Adam who left to freelance before the illustrations could be finalised.

69 'er Chairs: Get A Room!

69 'er Chairs 2, View my Flickr stream here.

I've surpassed 100 photos of abandoned chairs! This is in comparison to my 15 photos of forgotten shoes.

I've actually got quite an eye for shoes, mattresses and chairs. I can't help but walk the long way home from the city most nights in an effort to catch a few chairs in the side streets.

Having a camera phone has certainly helped as most chairs have a street life of about 18 hrs before that start a new life in doors.

Not at your Blockbuster

I received two interesting divx videos from a friend a while back and only just got around to watching them. Both Center on politics in the USA and both are from the "liberal" point of view.

The first was called Orwell Rolls In His Grave about Bush and the election.

The second was an excerpt from a CBC Special called “The fifth estate - Sticks and Stones" on the Conservatives vs the Liberals in mainstream media in the USA.

The funniest person seems to be this Bill O’Reilly guy. We have a few personalities in Australia similar to him but no way near as bad as that fruitcake. Why is this guy still allowed on TV?

Both videos are worth watching and if you can download them it’s worth the bandwidth.

So now I’ve expanded my distrust of the news past the weather (which is never right) to pretty much every facet of news.

The Right to Refuse

The Right to Refuse, View my Flickr stream here.

It seems if you have a giant mexican moustahe you cannot ride a taxi in Perth.

Pub Toilet Vending Machine

Pub Toilet Vending Machine, View my Flickr stream here.

I don't even know where to begin with this photo but Mum stimulation is quite funny.

Parmelia Hilton

Parmelia Hilton, View my Flickr stream here.

It's Paris Hiltons second cousin