Ty Mattheu Photography

I still remember my very first PC. Actually it was a Mac. A beautiful Mac Plus sporting not one, BUT TWO 800 KB floppy drives.

No hard drive.

If my math serves me right, that means that I would only need 27 disks to hold one RAW image from my 5D Mark II. So, back in the day — well, storage came at a premium.

Not so much anymore. Storage space is cheap, but necessary. Today’s big sensors laugh at 500 GB internal hard drives, so if you’re shooting with any regularity, you’re using an external drive or two. And most likely, they are portable.

My biggest gripe with these devices is that they are generally flimsy affairs. I don’t have a great deal of faith in their “portability”. In fact, I have never met one that I didn’t feel like wasn’t one bad drop away from oblivion.

Until now.

Check out the A-DATA SH93 HDD. If you buy the hype — and for $100, I probably will — this tough son of a gun looks like it knows what “life on the road” really means. I don’t know how fast they run, but they sure look like they are gonna last. Take a look at the video, and see what you think.

More information at A-DATA and Amazon
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Yes Dear — My greed knows no bounds!

Next on the list is an enlightening little tool that has fascinated me for a bit — The Photoflex XS Octadome NXT.

Light up my life…..

I have long “longed” for a workable beauty dish for small flashes.  There are options, but they are either too expensive, or perhaps a little sketchy quality wise.  When I saw this softbox, though, I got to thinking — what if I paired this up with a mirror attached to a little lightsphere?  Poor mans beauty dish — hopefully, Santa, you will give me a chance to find out!

Read more about it at Photoflex and Amazon.

Part One of my “gimme guide” focused on color. Part two will as well. Now that I have the camera all straightened out — what about my monitor? Is my green really green?

There’s only one way to ever really know — with the proper calibration tool. Which brings us to….

Color my world….. Again.

Datacolor has made calibration tools for many years. I have long used the Spyder Express for my laptop, with great results. However, the recent addition of a 22″ monitor to my workflow puts me at a disadvantage. The express will only handle one monitor profile, and the workaround is time consuming. Enter the Spyder 3 Pro.

More information at Datacolor and Amazon.

Well, it’s that time of year.  My dearest wife has been asking me for three months, “What do you want for Christmas?”  And, as usual, I don’t know.  Ask me in July, of course, and I can come up with three dozen items in ten seconds flat.  Ask me now — and dementia sets in.

So I forced myself to sit down and think long and hard about it.  Finally, a few items “flashed” through my mind……

Color my World

My one word definition for frustration is “Color”. Rarely do I finish an image and feel like I have captured the true essence of what I saw through the viewfinder. It can drive you a little crazy.

Enter the Passport. More or less a well made color chart, it the software behind the scenes that makes this baby look like a winner. It fully integrates with Lightroom, so color management from camera to computer is a snap. If you use other post processing software, then the included application will get you up and running. Bottom line — if you’re about eliminating variables from the equation, this looks like a relatively inexpensive (<$100) way to get it done.

Check it out at X-Rite and Amazon.

Hey honey…. more to come, I promise!

In yesterday’s post, I featured a headshot taken of a realtor friend for the most current strobist.com boot camp series. In looking at the shot, something a little unusual about the post-production stuck with me. I thought I would share it with you.

Generally, when I shoot guys, I don’t give a second thought to working with skin, outside of removing large blemishes and such. Certainly I don’t think about skin smoothing.

But this photo was so “in you face”, (no pun intended) that I was picking up a lot of red in the skin, as well as some pore texture. Nothing unattractive or unexpected, but I had a thought…….

When i popped this picture into photoshop, I opened up Portraiture 2, and played with the settings. I found that by setting the small and medium detail smoothing to zero, and leaving the large at default, I got a very nice, subtle texture. Further, a quick tweak on the color removed the red areas and really evened out the skin tone.

15 seconds tops, for what I thought was a very natural look.

If you’re a P2 user, give it a shot. If not, check out the product. It might just be the little difference you’re looking for in your corporate head shot photography.

-TY

Links of note:

www.imagenomic.com/pt.aspx Portraiture 2 Website

I discovered strobist.com about a year ago. Like many aspiring photographers, I was sucked in by the consistently awesome results David Hobby, the “proprietor” was able to acheive with small speedlights on a tight budget. I pledged myself to the purity of his example, and pursued his achievements with vigor.

One of the major disappointments of discovering David’s site so “late” was that I missed the original Boot Camp series. Boot Camp was a group of assignments that tested the mettle of the strobist following, challenging them to get creative with light. A few trinkets awarded to the best images at the end added a wee bit to the drama.

Well, Boot Camp is back, and count me in. Assignment One, “Headshot”, is due today — for once, I was early, submitting mine on Sunday. My picture appears above.

For the curious: Westcott 45″ Halo with Canon 580 EXII inside at 1/4 power, triggered via RadioPopper. On Camera fill at 1/128 power via 580 EX II. Window light for the rim. Shot with Canon 5D Mark II and 85mm 1.8 lens.

-Ty

Links of note:

www.strobist.com Strobist Web Site

Although I never intended as much, I find that the lions share of my photo editing takes place in Lightroom. Try as I might, though, I could never really avoid Photoshop for any picture that needed to be output. Lightroom 2’s sharpening and noise reduction tools are simply not up to the task of getting any photo (especially noisy ones) ready for consumption.

Until now.

Nik Software has recently released their Complete Collection as a set of Lightroom 2 and Aperture plug-ins. For $300, you receive Sharpener Pro, Dfine, Viveza, Color Efx, and Silver Efx Pro. The really cool thing is that these all run out of the “Edit In” window in Lightroom 2. You simply grab the one you want, and watch it load in a new window.(Note: This package does NOT include the photoshop plugins. For that, you would need their “Ultimate” collection).

With batch processing enabled, it really makes shooting everything in RAW a snap, even the kids birthday parties. For me, this will be great during volleyball season — lots of shots at ISO 6400 that all had to roll to CS4 and Noiseware Professional just for the NR. No more. Simply call up Dfine, knock down the noise, and move on to sharpening and saving. Or printing. Or posting.

Time saved. I like that.

And an added bonus…..

I have a sweet, 25% off discount code. Normally, I would not tease with such a thing, but I’m curious to see if anyone out there is reading my little blog yet. So here’s the deal. Leave me a comment on this post with your email address, and I will send you the code. The code will work on all Nik products at their site, and it will get you the best price available on the complete collection as of this writing, beating even Academic Superstore.

I’m waiting……….

-Ty

Links of Note:

www.niksoftware.com Nik Software

I am a big fan of Scott Kelby’s “Kelbytraining.com” education site. Lots of goods stuff going on over there. I particularly enjoy the online video series. There are literally dozens of classes on topics from photoshop to lighting, presented in easily digestible pieces by the best in the business.

I love my kids. In fact, I wouldn’t be where I am today with my photography without their inspiration. In a sense, I owe all this to them.

But, at 10 and 6, they aren’t exactly “pulling their weight” when it comes to dear old Dad’s second career. They are reluctant models at best. A contagious lack of focus makes them lousy voice-activated light stands. And they are always there to remind Mom that “Daddy’s on the computer AGAIN!!!”

However, they do come in handy occasionally. Like the day I discovered Academic Superstore.

For those not familiar, Academic Superstore is like Costco — except they traded the 20 gallon gallon pickle jars for DEEP discounts on software and other electronic items. Their business model is based on making the many educational discounts made available by software manufacturers more accessible.

To purchase at their website, the first thing you need is a kid. Then the kid needs to be in school….. for many of us, that works out pretty well. With that settled, you go through a simple registration process. They require a few items from you to prove that you legally represent a minor student eligible for the discounts. Once your account is online, you can use your registration to purchase at the special prices.

And the discounts? Mostly awesome. Photoshop CS4 for less than $200. Lightroom 2 for $99. Microsoft Office — under $100.

They also offer a huge selection of popular photoshop plug in software, at big savings.

As with any discount, always do a little research of course. They are not always the cheapest, especially on electronic items. But I have found them to be less expensive than other, reputable dealers on all software, excluding the occasional manufacturers special.

-Ty

Links of Note:

www.academicsuperstore.com Academic Superstore Website

If you’re like me, Facebook can be both a blessing and a curse. It’s a trip to catch up with folks you haven’t talked to in ages, but it’s too easy to get wrapped up in “old times”, only to realize it’s 3 am on a Tuesday, and at some point in the last week your family up and moved to Cleveland.