One of the top highlights of a visit to Alaska is when you are staring at the face of  400 foot tall  Hubbard Glacier, you get a real appreciation for your minuscule place in time and space.  Here you are, face to face with a six-mile wide field of ice that is over 400 years old, it has traveled over 80 miles in a monolithic river of ice, and it stands on the precipice of the abyss. The ice you stare has lived through every moment of American history, going back to well before the New World was “discovered”. The ice you stare at absorbs all the colors of the spectrum, save one.  The brilliant blue that is reflected, even more so on a cloudy day, is a color that draws you in.  You have to look at it.  The blue coupled with the staggering size of the glacier is something that leaves an impression on you.

And then you hear it. .. a thundering crack.  The natives call it “White Thunder”. If you are lucky, you will see the whole thing…a piece of ice, as tall as the Statue of Liberty, simply falls off the face of the glacier and impacts the surface of the water with the energy of a large bomb.  The resulting explosion would be a catastrophic event were one to be standing under it.  Thankfully you are safe aboard an ocean going vessel, that is not even half the height of the glacier, and you have a cup of hot chocolate in your hand.  Welcome to 21st Century travel!

An Alaskan cruise tour is one of the best ways to see Alaska.  Most of Alaska is inaccessible by road.  You cannot even drive to the capital city of Juneau.  There is one north-south road in the main interior of Alaska.  A cruise tour lets you see the maximum amount in a convenient and comfortable way. Cruise out of Vancouver and head north, ending up in Seward or Whittier.

In Seward, arrange a kayak trip, or whale watching, or even fishing.  There are amazing islands to explore by kayak.  There are truly few places in the world that match the beauty of this area. From here, take the Alaska Railroad to Anchorage, or even up to Denali. The train is the preferred way to travel.  Motor coaches can be crowded, they do not get to see the same scenery as they follow the road, and you simply cannot get up and walk around like you can on the train.

If you land in Whittier, make sure and walk straight off the pier and over to the folks at Philips 26 Glacier cruise.  This fantastic day trip is a great way to get an even closer look at a glacier.  Surprise Glacier is the highlight of this trip, and with the small (relative to the cruise ship) boat, you can get much, much closer to the face of the glaciers, for beautiful photo opportunities.

From either Whittier or Seward you can get to Denali National Park.  The Alaska Railroad will get you there in style and comfort.  Denali is truly a marvel of the world.  Standing over 20,000 feet tall, the peak of Mount McKinley creates its own weather systems.  If you get truly lucky and catch the mountain on a clear day, you will be treated to an unparalleled site.  Once in the park, the abundant wildlife and soaring landscapes are something to behold.

When people ask me, what is your favorite place you’ve traveled to, my answer is always the same.  Alaska.  I have found many places I enjoy going, but I’ve not ever found a place that sticks in my heart like Alaska does.  For me, the glaciers are the biggest attraction, but you will find your own reason for falling in love with Alaska!

Eric Jacky is a freelance photographer living in Eagle.  His first Alaska Photo Cruise workshop takes place in the summer of 2011.

We will be conducting hands on shooting, featuring a stop at America’s largest tidewater glacier, Hubbard Glacier.  Participants will be able to use their gear, or try gear provided by the workshop to shoot images of this magnificent work of nature.

We will be visiting Juneau (with an optional helicopter trip to Mendenhal Glacier), Sitka, Ketchikan and Victoria, BC.  There will be opportunities to photograph whales and Bald Eagles who are always near by.

Enjoy a Bon Voyage party as we leave Seattle and head north, followed by a first class diner with your new friends!

More information is available now at www.alaskaphotocruise.com.  Space is available on a first come first served basis, and is very limited.

This image shows the challenge of light vs. dark with no where to run!

Photographing High Contrast Situations

On Tuesday morning I did a short shoot for Concordia University who was doing a ground breaking ceremony for a new law school they are building in Boise.  I had met with the principals a few weeks back to go over the layout of things and get an idea of what and who was going to be where, etc.  An important thing was that we met at about the same time as the event was going to take place. This was important because it gave me an idea of what challenges I was going to face with regards to lighting position.  Shooting an indoor event is one thing, shooting outdoors, while not always harder, does present its own set of obstacles.  In this case, I was dealing with a North to South facing event, and a 10:00 start time, which meant the sun was going to be coming in at exactly 90 degrees(ish) to my subjects.  Ouch.

The second challenge came in that the Sun was peeking around the side of a building, so while the subject may have been speaking, everything behind him was in shade.

Third challenge, video crew.  Video crews were there to capture the entire event, which means now my area of movement is somewhat restricted.  If you’ve ever shot an event featuring a single focal point, you know that EVERYONE wants to be in that center spot.  Video crews usually win that battle because, well, because they are stationary and can’t be as nimble as someone with a DSLR.  So where I wanted to stand was off limits, because no one wants to see the back of my noggin on screen, so I actually had to stand back by the vid, just below the lens, and use my 80-200 f/2.8 telephoto to zoom in.  Not a major deal, just something you have to think about when shooting events.

So, the trick really became trying to light everything properly and make it look ok, even in what are normally unrecommended shooting hours.  (No golden hour, early morning, late evening light here, just straight up sun and harsh shadows!).  I pack a Nikon SB800 strobe which helps at closer range, I metered for the shadows and cranked the flash up to +3 for most of the shots that I could get close enough to use it, but for the longer distance stuff, just had to work with my ISO and shutter speeds to get it to work.

In the end, it became a balancing act of high ISO range (640-800 for most of it), and relatively slower shutter speeds at those ISO ranges so I could pull out the details in the darker areas, while not blowing out the data bathed in bright sun light.

The Moment Of Truth

So, three morals to this story, 1) Light happens, and you just have to deal with it.  Sadly, we can’t hoist lighting condition requirements upon our clients (and you know we would if we could), so we are forced to take what cards are dealt and sort it out.  2) Flexibility is the key, be nimble, bring everything you think you will need (extra batteries, etc).  And moral number 3?  Assault is a crime, so when someone stands right in front of your carefully crafted and long anticipated climax shot (in this case, the actual breaking of the ground with the ceremonial shovels), try to resist the urge to bash them about the head with your monopod.  Pivot as little as possible without completely destroying the integrity of your shot and get what you can.  Happy event shooting!

The result of an audience member who stands up right at the critical moment can have ill consequences for your critical shot. In this case, I had to jump to my left, throwing off the symmetry and balance I had lined up. I had exactly a fraction of second to adapt and get what I could.

The new import process is going to take some time to get used to. I’m sure over time it will prove to be better than the old, however I’ve yet to experience that, so will be patient.  Now that things are setup, going to dive into it and see what all it has to offer!

We have all been there and we have all seen someone doing the same thing…the persistent camera stuck to someone’s face while their kid is having their first go at the tea cups.  There is mom or dad, watching the whole thing through a 2 inch lcd display while little Billy has a great time.

I would argue that this is not a good way to live!  Take a photo, but then put the camera down and enjoy the scene for Pete’s sake!  Living the memory is part of what makes the trip so special.  On this recent trip, either it was bugging me, or it really did seem out of control, the number of parents who witnessed their kids entire experience through the lens.  It is ok to not capture every waking second of a trip on camera, really!

So after 4 or so years of hard use on a D200, and getting some wonderful images, I’ve started looking around.  Right off, I know I’m not going to drop 7K on a D3, thats overkill.  I have ruled out (again) switching to Canon.  I’m torn between getting a D700 (Full Frame sensor, heavy duty build, etc), vs a D300s (crop sensor, HD video which I may or may never use), and oh, its a $1000 bucks less than the $2400 D700, which doesn’t hurt its cause.

Being the president of a large area camera club, I have access to lots of shooters with various gear.  Thankfully, two of my colleagues have the gear I’m looking at, so I get the benefit of trying it on before I buy it.  Of course I’ve read all the reviews, the Ken Rockwells of the world, the DP Reviews of the world, which are all helpful, but I still have to try it for myself.

I wanted to see, over a single frame, which camera takes the better shot.  All things being as equal as possible.  Each camera was set up with the same lens (an 85mm Nikkor 1.4), the same ISO of 400, an f stop of 4.5, and a shutter speed of 1/250 (the sync speed for the Nikon SB800 strobe mounted on the camera).  Both initial shots were on a tripod. (It should also be noted that both cameras internal noise reduction parameters were set to the same) The initial results I got were disappointing to say the least.  The D200, while appearing about a half stop under exposed (which I’ve attributed to possible outside lighting conditions being in flux due to a fast moving storm we were having), anyway, the D200 frame actually appeared to be a better photograph.

I sent my two shots to a colleague who examined both photos, and he agreed, yes, the D200 while containing slightly more noise, appeared to be a sharper image overall (slightly).  Which brings me to this point…All the reviews I keep reading are talking about incredible degrees of difference.  Sorry, didn’t see that here.

D300s on left, D200 on right

Ok, Now What?

So, now I’m thinking, other than simply needing a new body, is this camera really even a better camera?   Trying to think of an reasons at all why I would not be seeing a better photograph from the d300s, I decided to try my experiment one more time, this time taking ME out of the equation completely.  The previous attempt while done on a tripod, I was using my finger to actuate the shutter, would that really account for it?  Only one way to find out, so I broke out the shutter release and set  up a new shot, one with vivid colors, fine text detail, and some black/gray to see what kind of color range we’re talking about.

The Trix Box & Mika Hakkinen to the Rescue.

Who?  Never mind that,  for my purposes, a die-cast of this world championship F1 car will provide a lot of fine detail for me to try and capture.  As you will see in the sample below (and I will make the high res version available as well for a better look), this time my results were more in line with what I would have expected.

At distance, not much in the way of discernible difference

Upon closer inspection, the image clarity begins to be more of a factor. On the image below some of the fine detail really starts to fall apart on the D200.  However, to my eyes, the D200 images here, the blacks in the Mobil 1 logo appear to have more punch on the D200, and there appears to be more detail in the gradients of color on the Trix box.

Fine detail is more apparent in the D300 image on the left, not only in the highlighted area, but in the larger, black letting "Mika", the edges are sharper by a good degree.

Finally, in this series, same set of images, I got in really close on the files, and looked at the details on the drivers helmet and some of the body work lines.  This is where I finally began to see a good difference between the two cameras.  On the following image, the lettering on the visor of the driver’s helmet is clearly readable (and this print is really, really tiny to begin with on this 1/18th scale die-cast).

Text detail on driver's helmet is unreadable on the D200 image on the right, while very clear on the D300s on the left. Also highlighted is the sharper edges of the body work just behind the drivers head. Keeping in mind that all this text is very, very tiny tiny (reference the first photo of this series)

So…
So, I’m fairly disappointed that there wasn’t more of a clear difference between the to images when viewed at a distance.  The bottom line appears to be, that yes, there are some great technical enhancements (the LCD display on the 300s is lightyears better than the D200 for example), and yes, there is some fine detail difference, and maybe that is all one can expect.

So, The Next Question…D300s vs D700 Over a Single Frame
Since I also have a D700 on hand, but am not likely to purchase it, it was at least worth a try to see how it fared against the D300s over the single frame test.  Same conditions, same lighting, etc. The one thing that has to be accounted for is the fact that the D300s multiplies the image 1.5 times, while the D700 is a full frame sensor.  What this means is that a 50mm lens on the D300s is effectively a 75mm lens.  So I set up both camera with the Nikkor 24-120mm lens, I set the D300s to 50mm and the D700 to 75 to fill up approximately the same frame.

Again the results were interesting to me.  Looking at both shots side by side in Lightroom, there is no difference.  Not even color wise.

Looked at side by side, there is no discernible difference between the two cameras in terms of pure image quality. (That is afterall why we take photos right? Features are nice, but image is king)

And finally, looking at the ultra fine dots around the edge of the big red spot, the D300 appears to show much finer edge detail, while the D700 appears fuzzy.

Conclusion
For me, the fact that I need an updated body will probably lead me to get the D300s. Its not the quantum leap forward I was hoping for in terms of pure image quality, but it has a good combination of right price, great image quality, and noise reduction (I didn’t not spend a lot of time on this as I do not typically shoot in higher ISO ranges)  The video for me is a complete non factor, I played with it a bid, and with no auto focus, its completely worthless in my opinion.  It could never be used for capturing say a kids birthday party, or fun little things.  It would have to be used in carefully planned video shoots where things are not going to be moving in and out of focus.  Still not sure why Nikon and Canon are trying to cram this technology into an SLR.  As far as the comparison between the D300s and the D700, I do not see any reason for me to spend another grand for image quality that appears to be less than the D300s.  I just don’t know why that would even be an option.

A quick snapshot in the airport caught this moment that I would have missed trying to stop and pull out the "big" camera

Like millions of suckers around the world, I am an admitted follower of the cult leader who is Steve Jobs.  While not a “fly to New York, sleep on the sidewalk awaiting the iPad” type fanatic, I am nonetheless a believer that things should be simple.  Ask any of my clients and you hear my familiar mantra that less is more.  We got to the moon on a computer that couldn’t run a modern alarm clock, yet we insist on making things more and more complex for ourselves.  But I digress, this is not a tirade against the evils of technology, I wanted to talk about why I love my iPhone camera for everyday shooting.

the iPhone camera is certainly no marvel of photographic technology, but its enough to make great little snapshots of moments that you simply could not catch if you had to stop, open your gear bag, put together an SLR with the correct lens, strobe and all the other crap that goes into just taking a photo.  Then, after you have made a nice little photo, there are a variety of tools available, in camera, that you can use to touch up the photos a bit, then what is really the revolutionary part…sharing.

One of the biggest gripes my family has is they never get shots of our toddler.  Sure, I take a million photos of him (ok, 7204 tagged in Adobe Lightroom at the moment), but then I just sit on them because honestly, making prints of him, getting them distributed to various interested parties, doesn’t produce billable hours.  I get to enjoy them, but by the time I import them to Lightroom, I’ve forgotten about them anyway.

So, how does the iPhone solve this?  Immediately after taking a photo, doing some basic tweaks, I can either email it to whoever, or more impressively, post it straight to Facebook.

After skating out of shooting a friend's wedding, I was able to capture this intimate moment from my table

The Tools
I just use the basic iPhone camera for my photos.  I have the iPhone set up so that to access the camera fast by just double clicking the “home” button (in case of something way gnarly going on, I can get to it without fumbling around for the icon).  To set this, tap on your iPhone’s Settings icon (with the gears) Then tap on “General”.  (In this setting are a couple important things, 1 is the Passcode lock, I HIGHLY recommend this be turned on if you are prone to losing your phone, or have toddlers who like to push buttons).

To set the camera, tap on “Home”, and then tap on “Camera”.  This will set the iPhone to go straight to Camera upon double clicking the iPhone main button.  So when your little one rolls up on you in Momma’s high heels, and wearing a cowboy hat, you can quickly get the shot.

The Software The main App I use for photos is CameraBag ($1.99 in the App Store).  Install it on your iPhone and you have an instant little dark room.  Below are some sample images from CameraBag.  CameraBag is a seperate application from Camera (it can also act as a camera).  Tapping on the icon opens CameraBag, the double rectangle icon in the lower right accesses your camera roll, where you can select the image you just took.  Once selected, you can apply a number of fun filters to the image (Helga (which I believe may have been intended to mimic the look of a Holga camera), Logo, Instant, Mono, 1974, Infrared, Magazine, Silver, 1962, Cinema, Fisheye, and Colorcross are the most recent filters as of this writing.  To apply a filter to the image, just tap the name, “1974″ in the case below.  It shows you the preview, and you can save the image from here or email it directly out.

Standard Image Straight Out of the iPhone (and yes, standard moron behavior by yours truly)

Same Shot, but Using CameraBag "Lolo" Filter which adds a nice white border, and some contrast addition

Share
The best part.  Now that you have taken your all time favorite photo (at least for today), and you have put a smooth 70′s retro look to the photo, now you can easily share the photo with friends and family. In the iPhone, while looking at an image, there is a little icon in the lower left side of the image of an arrow, leaving a rectangle.  Click on that, and you now have a menu of options, Email Photo and MMS are the two we’ll worry about today, the other two options are for assigning a photo to a contact or setting an image as your desktop photo.

A quick step back from a shoot

Email Photo. Clicking this option will open up your email application, you enter the address(s) of gets the photo, and click “Send”.  It will send the email as an attachment, and presto, you have fulfilled your Fatherly duties to update the family on little Johnny’s exploits.  More seriously, you may one day find yourself in a situation where your photo may capture an important event, or you could use it to document a fender bender, whatever, it does have practical uses for anyone who is serious about photography.

Facebook I highly recommend the Facebook App (Free in the App Store).  In addition to updating your status, you can also upload photos by clicking on the camera icon in Facebook.  Again, another great way to share images with friends and family.

The photo below was a three shot stitch I did at Raymond James Stadium just before a U2 concert in 2009.  The iPhone is not blessed with neither a generous angle of viewing, nor a large sensor, so I took three photos to try and capture the enormous stage setup.  I stitched the three shots using Adobe Lightroom.

Here is a link to some popular iPhone camera Apps

Link to the Annual iPhone Photography Awards

Three shot stitch of U2 Stage Setup

Spring 2010 Meridian Living Cover

Was happy today to see the latest issue of Meridian Living Magazine. My photo of a darling little girl making cookies with her family ended up on the cover. Her and her family was featured in an article about fun things to do around the home. This shot originally was going to be something else, but the placement of the window in the family’s kitchen made for an opportunity for me to try something I wouldn’t normally try. The kitchen acted as a nice reflector to light the side of the girl’s face while the natural light from the window provided the rest of the light.

I placed her Mother and sister close to the window, placed the mixing bowl below their faces, the open cook book on the table and the little girl frame left with a measuring cup in her hand. When someone looks at the shot, their eye will meet her eyes, follow her arm down to the cup, over to the bowl and end up on the mother/sister. The colors were all nice and “springy” and the utterly adorable little girl really made the shot work.

You can view the latest issue of Meridian Living magazine online here

Bruneau Sand Dunes

What a fantastic weekend with the club out at Bruneau Dunes.  Our first night was simply amazing as we had crystal clear skies, no wind and until night time, the temp was just right.  After arriving and setting up our low tech camp site (is it just me, or has everyone else given up on tent camping?), we waited until a good amount of folks had shown up, and then we set out to tackle the dunes.  For being the first night of camping there, the place was crawling with people, which of course makes getting great sand dune shots difficult at best.  The best time would after a big windstorm, in the middle of the week, with no one there.  Easier said than done for sure.

Bruneau Sand Dunes

Anyway, the three of us crawled around awhile, shooting our shots.  I was lining up a really cool sand ridge shot, when these two yahoos came trapsing over the dune and kinda mucked up the shot.  Of course they were with us, so we couldn’t get too upset.  Turns out, I was ruining their shot as well, so we were even.  As the sun was just getting ready to drop over the horizon, we all lined up our sunset shots and got what we could.  We headed back to the Observatory where they were just getting their star programs ready, but since it was just after sunset, we headed back to camp and cooked up dinner.

After a quick meal, we headed back to the observatory, where we were able to see Saturn, the Eagle Nebula and a galaxy called NGC 2901 (or something like that).  Just outside the main telescope is where I set up the first of these star trail shots.  The first one was a 20 minute exposure, I set up the tree in the foreground to add a little context to the shot, I never even knew the trees in the background were there until after I looked the shot.  I set the aperature to f8, and using a shutter release cable, opened the shutter for the 20 minutes, not sure what I would get.

Star Trails at Bruneau Sand Dunes

Couple things I learned from that first star trail shot.  1) As dark as it was, I stilled picked up a huge amount of vignetting (really light areas in the corners of the image)  I’m not sure where it came from, but the general consensus was that it may have come from the viewfinder, so next time, put a hat or something over the viewfinder, 2) Luckily, I anticipated it, but was warranted, long exposures suck the life out of your batteries.  I used the Battery grip with 2 en-el3 Nikon batteries, and that one shot drained both of them deader than a door nail) So bring extra batteries.  Cold weather doesn’t help the situation either.  3) 20 minutes is cool, but 45 is better!.  The second shot I tried, I did a 45 minute exposure.  the star trails were much more pronounced, but unfortunately, the wind came up and shook the hell out of the tree I was using, so I didn’t get really what I wanted.  But I learned many lessons for next time. Couple things I learned from that first star trail shot.  1) As dark as it was, I stilled picked up a huge amount of vignetting (really light areas in the corners of the image)  I’m not sure where it came from, but the general consensus was that it may have come from the viewfinder, so next time, put a hat or something over the viewfinder, 2) Luckily, I anticipated it, but was warranted, long exposures suck the life out of your batteries.  I used the Battery grip with 2 en-el3 Nikon batteries, and that one shot drained both of them deader than a door nail) So bring extra batteries.  Cold weather doesn’t help the situation either.  3) 20 minutes is cool, but 45 is better!.  The second shot I tried, I did a 45 minute exposure.  the star trails were much more pronounced, but unfortunately, the wind came up and shook the hell out of the tree I was using, so I didn’t get really what I wanted. For this shot, there is really only one star to worry about.  A quick scientific explanation may be needed.  As most of us know, the Earth rotates around on its axis each day.  We also know that the Earth is titled something like 23 degrees from vertical, this is shown in the photograph by selecting the “North Star” or Polaris, as the central star in my shot.

The Great Dune

In a few short hours time, I will be loaded up and headed to the desert of Southwestern Idaho.  South of Mountain Home Air Force Base stands the largest single sand dune in the United States.  Bruneau Dunes Park is home to the big kahuna, standing over 400 feet tall (think 40 story building).  Aside from the fact the dunes represent one of the truly quiet, peaceful places in Idaho, it is also one of the least light polluted.

The plan this evening is to attempt a multi-hour exposure of the heavens to create a star trail shot.  Basically you find a point, say the North Star, set up your tripod and open the shutter, read a book, or two, and see what you get.  If all goes well, I will get a shot that 1) proves the world is round, and 2 shows one of those phenomenon that can only be seen through the magic of photography.  As the shutter is open, the world is still spinning, and the stars as we see them begin to move relative to us.  Over the course of hours, they will create a trail in the sky in a perfect circular shape.

Aside from the photographic experience, I am really looking forward to the comraderie that has come from my participation in the Camera Club of Eagle which I founded in 2008.  We have a great group of people, and I’m looking forward to stories around a campfire the next couple evenings.

Will post some photos when I get back!