Kuva&Kamera Fair

My public appearances are few and far apart this year. One of these is this weekend during Kuva&Kamera trade show in Helsinki, at Helsingin Messukeskus / Helsinki Exhibition & Convention Centre.

I´m giving a lecture on printing both on Friday and Saturday. There are a lot of issues which I think are important to get the best results. So, I´m talking on shooting and post processing, color management, profiles, printing materials and environments while doing post processing or surveying prints.

After both lectures I´ll be available for questions and discussions at Hanart / Canson Infinity booth for a couple of hours. I have also prepared a small portfolio with various images printed on my favorite Canson Infinity papers which can be seen at Hanart / Canson Infinity booth while the fair is open.

My lectures are:

Friday at 12.00-12.55, stage: Kuva&Kamera -lava

Saturday at 11.00-11.55, stage: Top-Shot -studio

Istanbul, Turkey, 2012

Photokina 2012 - Some last thoughts before show

My Photokina starts "officially" on Monday morning at 11am with Olympus press meeting. Then it goes on with Canon in the afternoon and Leica in the evening. Right now I can´t write about any possible product details but there will of course be new stuff coming. I have known for a few weeks what Olympus has in their pocket. Leica is taking wholly new steps but stays very much Leica, so don´t worry Leica shooters. Unlike many other companies, Leica has kept all their product images in-house and thus avoided seeing them published at internet rumor sites. Breaking NDAs seems to be one of the more popular hobbies these days.

During the next days I have several meetings, some of them just to keep in touch and exchange information. Of these I mention here one in particular. I have on Tuesday a meeting with Mr. Toshi Terada, who is Manager of SLR Product & Marketing Planning Department at Olympus. There has been so much writing about Olympus FT series future and FT-mFT merger in the internet that now is your chance: be free to send me questions to ask, preferably as comments to this blog. Of course you can ask anything regarding Olympus system cameras FT or mFT. But as you know companies do not tell about future steps and camera models too much in advance. So be realistic in your expectations and think about what to ask if you really want it answered. Also my hands are tied (by me) in what I will write because the better I keep confidentiality the more I will get to know. That´s the name of the game, for me at least.

My Photokina ends "officially" at Canson Infinity booth. I will be there presenting a swollen "combined Photokina version" of my print portfolios and telling about my photography and my experiences on printing on Canson Infinity materials. Canson Infinity is in Hall 6.1 and I will be there on Thursday afternoon and all day on Friday and Saturday. You can even have one or two of your images printed there. Please come in to say hello, if you happen to be visiting Photokina during those days.

Trends

Looking at what has been already published (and of course I´m reading rumor sites, too) I see a few trends happening:

Connectivity: More and more cameras will be connected to social media or the internet in general. Wifi is naturally an obvious method but it also is not a sure and easy way for those who are not familiar with managing wifi connections. Mobile cell phone technology is more likely the future.

Mirrorless: Reflex or mirror cameras are going out. They are not vanishing today because they still are better than mirrorless cameras for many applications but eventually they will lose. And I think it actually happens faster than we now think.

Narrowing market for APS-C DSLRs: Sort of related to above. Several and ever cheaper full frame (24x36mm) DSLRs are being introduced and on the other hand mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras are getting ever more capable and more popular. 

Large sensor compacts: With Sony RX-1, a full frame 35mm focal length compact camera, we now have the camera I was asking Canon to make for a few years. They didn´t (the price would have been too high then), Sony did, and I´m tempted... Sensor prices have gone down. The size of sensor and electronics in not an issue. Human factor and ergonomics dictate the body size and then the lens size is dictated by sensor size with the aimed for image quality, lens speed and other parameters of the lens.

Dying market for low-end compacts: Cell phones are killing low end compacts. Period. We buy more than 1.8 billion cell phones with camera this year. Next year even more. We are going to use a dedicated camera only when we want a "better" picture. Seeing this companies are concentrating their efforts in high end compacts.

Large sensor video cameras: I think the era of DSLR as video camera came and went already. They showed the possibilities and also the missing ergonomics. Hybrid cameras are here to stay for us who want to mix it but for anything more ambitious video work a dedicated video body (and dedicated lenses) is better and eventually (with rigs and mics and all) not more expensive. 

Higher lens prices: Lens prices are going up with more megapixels in sensors. There simply is no way to make cheap, high quality lenses. There is no way to keep lens prices the same if they must keep out resolving more megapixels. Electronics gets cheaper, lenses get more expensive. Canon´s new 24-70mm zoom is an excellent example of this trend, very high image quality, more than double the price. To counter this we will see ingenuity in software corrections. We will see variable lens structures where stepper motors move more lenses than just needed for focusing and/or zooming. And of course we will see more lenses with good lens elements but cheap mechanical construction.

-p-

The Road to Photokina 2012

This peculiar image (image source: wikipedia) dates back 30 years. Kodak Disc Film and Disc 4000 camera were introduced at Photokina 1982. The camera was fully automatic and the film disc was inside a convenient plastic cassette. You just had to drop the cassette inside camera, press the shutter button and Kodak took care of the rest. It´s was the simplest solution for handling film, ever. Today we have of course memory cards and no more film processing. What has not changed is the aim to have small and simple to use cameras. 

Speaking of small, look at the prism housing of this Nikon F3. Huge. This is the first autofocus camera by Nikon, the F3 AF, also introduced at Photokina 1982 (image source: wikipedia). It had two AF lenses, 80mm and 200mm and the focusing was not actually fast by today´s standards. It was slow but pro. Although the consensus among pros was then that we don´t need any damn autofocusing. The original Nikon F3 look with that red stripe (and the original beautifully proportionate prism, of course) was designed by the famed Giorgetto Giugiaro. I guess he too damned the F3 AF... However, both AF and red stripe have stayed. And so has Nikon.

Kodak was not so fortunate. Disc film was a bold move to streamline film handling both for consumer and labs. And simplify cameras. Too bad the film was not ready for it. As you can see, frames on processed negative disc are very small. They were too small and the prints turned out grainy and unsharp. Many labs helped the effect by using cheaper, optically inferior printing solutions. Despite Kodak´s massive marketing Disc cameras never became popular and were soon forgotten. And now also Kodak is little more than history, although one of the most glorious chapters in the history of photography. 

Kodak was so big then, they had one hall just for them at Photokina 1982. Nikon was then the choice of pros (Af sorning and others), but then Canon made better AF systems and minds turned. Hasselblad´s huge medium format multi projector slideshows were so impressive. 3D was making one of it´s comings... 30 years ago Photokina 1982 was my first Photokina. I was then working as an editor at Helsinki based Kameralehti (literally Camera Magazine). 

Nothing new under the sun of Cologne

I chose these two very different examples because they show that nothing has really changed in photography. Essentially photography (and camera industry) is still the same. What has happened is smaller electronics and more powerful computers. As said, chemical labs died, it´s done now inside cameras and by computers. Moving mechanical structures like film trains and mirrors are being superseded by electronic components. The strive for small, easy to use cameras is greater than ever. So is the strive for quality and performance. Kodak had the right general idea, only timing was wrong and the frame of opportunity was too short. Nikon´s implementation was also far from mature but they had time to make it better inside a larger system. 

We still want to be impressed by photographs, video and multimedia. We want to see and show images. Clunking slide projectors are history when we have social media and huge screens. But one has stayed, the print.

I love printing. Back then 30 years ago I was just moving from black and white shooting and printing into color transparent or slide photography and Cibachrome (color) printing. Now I do pigment printing. The image is the king, only the methods and equipment is changing. 30 years ago my camera was OM-1, now it is OM-D, so different, so alike.

What we see in Photokina 2012 is equipment which is again more powerful by computers. We see also better and more expensive lenses. More expensive because it is ever harder to keep lenses performing with more and cheaper megapixels.

Photokina 2012 and me

Personally for me this year´s Photokina is something that was not to happen. Two years ago I was there with my son who is sound designer and works naturally a lot with video. We didn´t pay much attention for still cameras, it was all video and seeing exhibitions. I was also shutting down my studio and retiring. I really thought that this is the last time for me, I´ve seen this too many times already.

But then I started blogging and making and showing more prints, and things started to lead from one to another. Photokina, here I come again! I´ll be working for Canson Infinity, the French printing paper maker. I´ll be doing something with Olympus and then, of course, will be meeting several friends and people inside industry.

I know Canson is presenting new ways to show and present images. I know Olympus has promised to fullfill one of my biggest wishes. But which one? We´ll see...   

I´ll be at Canson booth for the last three days of Photokina. I am showing my newest print portfolios and telling about my photography and printing on Canson Infinity papers. If you come to Photokina during those days, please come and let´s have chat on yours and my photography. I would love to meet my readers!

If you want to discuss more privately and on other matters, please contact me. It´s a long week and my calendar has still plenty of free spaces.

As an extension, after the Photokina I´m going to Paris and from there to Canson factories with a group of Australian professional photographers. Should be fun! And right after that (the next day actually) I´m giving lectures in Finland for two days in a joint seminar with Canson and Canon. Senior citizens are busy...

-p-

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General info on Photokina 2012 here.

Olympus E-M5: Exposing (to the right) and Lightroom 4.1

I posted previously an article on "Exposing to the Right" (ETTR) with Olympus E-P3 RAW images. You can read it here. This blog is based on the same fundamental idea. My previous article was both praised and scorned. The latter came mostly from people who believe in a method to do ETTR known as UniWB. UniWB is a clever method of addressing limitations you encounter with practically every digital camera if you want to expose to the right. With it you have to endure either a green or a black and white live view viewfinder, and I am not too happy with either. Also it is based on using histogram which I´m not happy with either. This method I am using is based on using highlight warning blinkies as exposure meter: they are both easy to see, very graphical, and show what´s actually happening in your image, spot by spot if you want to. This method applies for Olympus PEN cameras since E-P3 (plus E-PL3 and E-PM1) and OM-D E-M5.

Since I got Olympus E-M5 I have practiced it quite happily with the same settings as with E-P3. Lots of people have written to me to write about ETTR with E-M5. I wanted to wait until Lightroom is ready for it because this method is set to be used with Lightroom. Of course you can tweak it for other RAW converters by varying camera configuration settings. At first Lightroom 4.0 was a pile of bugs. There were two Release Candidates for Lightroom 4.1, and now we have a quite satisfactory final version of Lightroom 4.1. It still has some instability issues left (and a few shortcomings with Photoshop integration if you have not updated to Photoshop CS6) but they are no more important here. What´s more important is that Lightroom 4.1 gives you more control on your image relative to its final use.

E-M5 configuration

Lets start with Olympus E-M5 configured like this:

Shooting Menu 1 > Picture Mode > 4 Muted > Contrast -2, Saturation, -2, gradation: Normal

Custom Menu D > Info Settings > LV-info > Highlight&Shadow:On, Histogram: Off

Custom Menu D > Histogram Settings > Highlight: 245

Custom Menu D > Live View Boost: Off

Custom Menu G > Color Space: Adobe RGB

Auto white balance, if used, must be set to neutral: Custom Menu G > Auto WB, Keep Warm Color: Off

Exposure

I adjust my exposure until the red warning color just appears on my chosen critical tone area. By critical tone I mean the brightest area in my image where I want to have definition of tones if the image is printed. In principle, this allows a 1/6-stop accuracy at best, but in practice, the reference tone is very close to the value of 96% almost always when the image opens in Lightroom Develop module. Same critical area will be at RGB value 245 (Adobe RGB or sRGB) in the final image with very little need to adjust as seen below. I do not need to use histogram while shooting, I do not need to check captured images, at least not because of the exposure. 

I exposed this target (right half of Spyder Checkr) with E-M5 so that red highlight warning color started to blink on the lightest area, which is the white patch, up left. This how it looks like imported in Lightroom 4.1 with Lightroom default settings. The only thing I have changed is that I chose Custom WB according to patch shown by cursor. I shot the target outside in sunlight using Daylight WB. You can use Auto-WB for general subjects but it is better to choose a preset WB or make in-camera Custom WB if your image has one or two dominant colors. 

(Note: What you see above is a sRGB image. That´s the only practical option to show in the internet. If you download it and measure patches, they have sRGB values and differ from what I show as measured from converted RAW file below.)

The image above shows the lightest and darkest patch measured (Custom WB, other LR settings at default). The lightest patch is very close to my aim, 96%. The image looks mostly fine but you may need to make some adjustments to darker tones if your subject had low or extremely high contrast.

In general photography subjects many times have brighter spots or areas than my critical value. They are mostly light fixtures and specular reflections where tonal definition is not needed. They may and must go purely white otherwise the image will look flat. I´m interested in where I want tones to end.   

Basically this was it. I am done with telling how I expose with E-M5 when images are opened in Lightroom 4.1. But I go on and write some more background information which might be useful to some people.

Quick-checking Color Channels

If you need to be more precise about colors everything is not done yet. Namely, some highly saturated colors may have a blocked channel as seen in Lightroom RGB preview. In this target all the other patches have definition but yellow patch shows red channel as over saturated and blue patch shows the same channel as zero with LR default settings.

Note: If shooting casual images to be seen just on monitor, I could expose even more to the right. There is some headroom left. By setting Custom Menu D > Histogram Settings > Highlight: 255 I would expose lighter by 1/3 of a stop. And even from there you could expose still a full stop more before the lightest patch would become hopelessly over saturated and blocked. I have tried it but the risk of saturating color channels beyond repair becomes too big AND the time needed to tweak the image colors grows too long. That´s why I have chosen my approach with Lightroom 4.1 as shown here. You may find Histogram Setting 255 worth trying. 

Here I have corrected those two patches to have definition in every channel by slightly lowering yellow and blue saturation in HSL panel.

Note: Actually I can use Spyder Checkr to calibrate my camera to show the colors in target correctly, but that would be a subject for another blog.

RGB Profiles and Soft Proofing

This image shows the same situation seen as Adobe RGB Soft Proof in Lightroom 4.1. Soft Proofing is a new feature in Lightroom 4. It gives you a tool to check that your image has sound values for a needed use. If your image will be printed in a magazine (or offset printing), the general workflow is to prepare and send it in AdobeRGB color space before color separation (conversion into the right flavor of CMYK). With my exposure the lightest patch goes just where the tonal definition end generally in offset printing, at RGB values of 245. Depending on paper the darkest tonal definition would fall between RGB values 16 to 30, with 16 meaning high quality glossy magazine cover and RGB 30 meaning a cheap matte cataloque paper. Instead of Histogram it says now Soft Proofing and the histogram has been changed to show values according to Adobe RGB profile. Below histogram you can see now RGB values, these here are for the lightest patch. I have copied the corresponding RGB values on each four color pick window. Gamut warning is on, as shown by the little square in the upper right hand corner of histogram. Blue patch has still some traces of warning color showing that it is just barely inside Adobe RGB gamut. RGB numbers all show definition in every RGB channel (maybe just barely but still) and they would print out nicely enough with CMYK colors. There´s more to this (Intent etc.), but what´s important, you can see how easily this method of exposing with E-M5 gives you technically very good images. 

Here we are soft proofing the same RAW file with sRGB profile (LR at default settings, same custom WB). The lightest patch has the same values (244) as with AdobeRGB profile but the darkest patch is darker. The main difference, however, is the smaller color gamut of sRGB. Five patches are covered by red gamut warning color. 

Here I have tweaked those five patches into inside sRGB gamut by using saturation sliders in HSL panel. Again: Exposure is fine but RAW image makes a lot more colors possible than can be had inside sRGB color space. This kind of mapping is also what happens if you shoot JPEG and choose sRGB as color space in your camera. Your camera maps colors inside sRGB color space. The method may be different from what I have shown here by simple means but the idea is the same.

Note: For casual images shown on your monitor there is no need to force all colors inside sRGB (or AdobeRGB, if your monitor is capable of it). You are free to have over saturated colors if you like them, but for many professional purposes colors need to be inside gamut. Also all cameras do not behave right and map colors inside chosen color space for JPEG images. Bleak inside gamut colors are not pretty enough, it is commercially better to leave colors saturated, strong and beautiful.

The last example comes back to my reasons to do things my way. My favorite printing paper for my pigment ink printers is Canson Infinity Platine Fibre Rag. Here we have again the same target shot with Lightroom at default values (same custom WB). All the colors are beautifully inside Platine Fibre Rag gamut with this profile for Epson 9900 printer. What coud be better? Perfect exposure for the lightest tones and even strong colors have full definition out of the box. I only need to tweak dark tones as needed. Most of the time I do a lot more with my images but that´s not out of necessity. 

-p- 

Update on June 22, 2012 at 15:35 by Pekka Potka

Two examples of lots of gain with no pain

This morning, while walking the dog, I shot a couple of comparisons to show the difference in details and noise between images that are exposed "normally" with E-M5 and "my" images. "My" meaning of course using settings and blinkies as said earlier in this blog.

Example one:

Same view shot first at camera´s (E-M5) autoexposure and secondly so that red blinkies just lit the trailer´s bright side. Both shots opened here into Lightroom 4.1 with Lightroom´s default settings. Readings under histogram are from trailer´s white side.

Next I clicked Auto Tone for both images. As you can see, Lightroom gives almost exactly one stop difference between needed adjustments. Again readings from the same spot from white area. I could have gone further here with tweaking both images but doing so has no real relevance here. Like you also can see white area is not really white but has details like over painted markings. These highlight details would be quite similar after any reasonable tweaks in both images. Looking at other things in these images, you notice that I have applied an overly strong but equal combination of sharpening and no noise reduction for both images. This to illustrate how ETTR image is clearly superior in blue sky and in yellow and green surfaces. It has a lot more headroom for tweaking. These are 100% crops.

Crops from upper right hand corner show how darker but still medium blue sky behaves. Same overly strong sharpening to better show the differencies. ETTR image keeps wisps of cloud much better intact.

Example two:

Again the other picture shot with camera´s autoexposure but this time the other on was exposed to the right up to the last setting where red blinkies did not light up the lightes part of sky. Both images here opened into Lightroom 4.1 with Lightroom´s default settings. This example is to show the behaviour of darker tones.

And again, I just clicked Auto Tone to normalize images. These details from the back of chair are 2:1 screen captures from Lightroom. All noise reduction (color and luminance) is again off (at 0) and strong sharpening applied. As you can see ETTR image shows much more detail and less especially color noise. What you would get is even more detail with similar noise reduction in every image. The more you tweak the greater the gain from ETTR would be. Also note how much more details with smoother tones the background (easiest seen on the right) shows.

-p-  

Canson Infinity, three more papers

I wrote last November on my first experiences on Canson Infinity papers. You can find the blog here. I promised to continue with there more papers. Now I have enough experience on them to write an opinion.

Baryta Photographique

Baryta Photographique has a smoother surface (but has still some texture) than Platine Fibre Rag and it has also a slightly wider gamut. They both have the same weight, 310g, but Platine Fibre Rag feels rougher and  more "cardboard-ish" when hold in hand. The base material in Baryta Photographique is alpha-cellulose and it has a barium sulphate coating, just like traditional black and white papers had. Over that there is of course a receiver coating for ink jet. Visually these two papers have practically the same degree of glossiness. It seems that Baryta Photographique shows scratches a bit easier than Baryta.

Baryta Photographique has earned very good comments in net blogs and it has became a favorite for many Fine Art printers. Maybe I am just imagining but I tend to see the images on Baryta more three dimensional than on Platine. On the other hand I also feel that Baryta has a lesser character as a material than Platine, because I seem to find more qualifiers for Platine´s material feel. Baryta simply shows the image brilliantly and remains more in the background as a material.

Also Baryta Photographique is buffered, acid  free and has no optical brighteners. Black ink should be photo black. The image dries immediately and is water proof. It is available in all standard sizes from 8,5x11" / A4 up to 44" roll.

BFK Rives

BFK Rives derives from printing graphics, and it has a history of more than 500 years behind. Made of 100% Rag, BFK Rives is mould-made. It is a slow technique where a cylinder mould fetches pulp from tank. Paper stock is transferred from mould to felt and then dried between cylinders. The choise of felt gives the paper its grain, defined by the felt’s structure. Mould-made paper is stronger than machine made because the bonding between paper fibres is the same in all directions. A paper like this is very good for embossing. BFK Rives in Infinity series gets of course a one sided ink jet coating. This printing side is very easily recognized by fingers from the other side.

BFK is naturally a matt paper. The mentioned structure makes this paper clearly different from the smooth Rag Photographique. Another difference is warmer paper tone. Obviously because of manufacturing method BFK Rives is a rigid material and as 310g paper it is very suitable even for cards. Its surface texture is sensitive for chafing, though.

I chose BFK Rives for images whose nature is more on the side of graphics than strictly photographic. This material promotes very well that style. Canson Infinity series has also materials with even more structure if you want to emphasize more painterly or water color styles.

Again with BFK Rives we can repeat all previously mentioned criteria for museum required longevity. You should use Matte Black with it. Also this one is available in all standard sizes from 8,5x11" / A4 up to 44" roll. BFK Rives is the most expensive of my five papers.

PhotoSatin Premium RC

PhotoSatin is the other alpha-cellulose based material of these five papers. Its base tone is also the whitest of these. It has a subdued satin shine, which is achieved by polyethylene coating. This satin surface has less gloss than Baryta Photographique. I consider PhotoSatin as a great paper for portfolios, books and as a material for first prints. It is the cheapest paper in Canson Infinity series. PhotoSatin is not easily stained and fingerprints can be wiped off easily. It is a lot thinner and more flexible than Baryta, and lighter also at 270g, which makes it good for books and portfolios. Really I don´t consider PhotoSatin to be any worse than the others. I just lacks the exquisite material feel which those non-RC papers have - for me. 

And again I am repeating that PhotoSatin has no OBA´s and fulfills all museum criteria for longevity. And like with the others you can print with dyes or pigmented inks. Photo Satin is available in all standard sizes from 8,5x11" / A4 up to 44" roll.

Canson has two different trial or Discovery Packs. The other one has 10 and the other 11 different materials, two sheets of each. The difference between Packs is that the other one includes only matte papers and the other one has emphasis on glossy and semi-glossy papers. This image shows matte surfaces. These Discovery Packs are an easy way to learn differnt printing materials because you can get ICC-profiles for each of them from Canson Infinity web site.

Canson Infinity range and support

I have found that Canson has done a few important things right. 

First is the width of high quality materials and surfaces. They have everything from high gloss to baryta surfaces. From smooth mattes to textured watercolor papers and canvases. All in all 20 different products of which I have introduced only five. For me the choise among these is more a question of taste than quality. The structure of surface, glossiness (or lack of) and base tone all work together when choosing a paper for each image. All materials are suited for pigmented and dye inks.

Second, Canson has taken time and effort to make excellent ICC profiles. When you change from one paper into another, you only need to change the profile (and printer settings) and the result is very predictable and consistent. This consistency makes printing a lot easier and cheaper without any compromise in quality. As I noted above, any high quality paper is not perfect for every image. Canson makes it easier to choose the best paper for every image.

And third, Canson Infinity has good instructions on their website for choosing right inks and paper settings for various printers which include over 40 printer models from Epson, Canon and HP. Paper range, product PDFs, ICC profiles and lots of information and tips on printing can be found at cansoninfinity.com

-p-