360Photography

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  • Seeing into space: Cosmic Microscapes with photographer Neil Buckland

    A slice of meteorite, sandwiched between two linear polarizers.

    Neil Buckland is obsessed with detail. For more than fifteen years, the Seattle-based photographer has been doing stitched landscape photography composed of dozens of images, captured on everything from Micro Four Thirds cameras all the way up to medium format. These days, he’s become enamored with a new type of landscape – one that is very, very small. It also happen to come from space.

    “I’ve always been fascinated with abstract photography of ordinary things,” Buckland says. “There’s beauty everywhere, and I especially love using macro lenses to reveal more detail than I can see with my eyes – an extension of seeing more detail is capturing more resolution, more clarity, more information.”

    When it comes to his newest work, which he’s titled Cosmic Microscapes, the objects of Buckland’s abstract photography are anything but ordinary. They’re impossibly thin slices (i.e. 30 microns ‘thick’ – human hair averages 90 microns) of formerly space-faring objects that have crashed into Earth over the millennia. And though most of these slides are around 0.75″x1.5″ in size, Buckland is making prints from them that are around 12 feet wide and even larger.

    By rotating the polarizers, Buckland can alter the visible colors seen through the sample.

    I had a chance to sit down with Buckland in his studio in south Seattle to discuss not only how this project came to be, but also how he manages to produce these images – and this insane amount of detail – on a fully custom-built rig.

    ‘The depth-of-field is 3.5 microns thick’

    It all started when Dr. Tony Irving of the University of Washington first came to Buckland’s studio three years ago to have meteorite slices photographed for a scientific presentation. At that time, Buckland didn’t know what this project would grow into.

    Buckland’s rig is almost entirely custom-made for this specific purpose.

    “The first time I looked at [the slide], I thought, ‘okay, nothing special,’” Buckland said. Then, Dr. Irving used two linear polarizing filters to pass cross-polarized light through it. “What is this magic? With the cross-polarized light, you get these crazy colors you never knew existed,” Buckland said. The colors tell scientists a lot about the chemical composition of what they’re looking at – but they also happen to be stunningly beautiful.

    Buckland started out using a standard macro lens on a Pentax K-1 DSLR, and while this served him well enough for Dr. Irving’s scientific presentations, one thing led to another – and another. He soon bought a Venus Optics 2.5x-5x macro lens, but that also wasn’t enough.

    Buckland must make incredibly fine adjustments to ensure precise focus across a 1.5″ specimen.

    After months of tinkering, Buckland found what he was really after: a 10x microscope objective, mounted to his camera via a custom-made adapter, with the camera on a custom-made reinforced metal mounting base that weighs in at around 50 lbs. Despite the concrete construction of his studio building, Buckland couldn’t work with a lighter stand. “My biggest, heaviest tripod was useless,” Buckland said. “A UPS truck would pass by and I’d see the camera live view shake like crazy.” And when you’re using Pentax’s Pixel Shift technology at this level of magnification, you need absolute and complete stability.

    This is because a 10x microscope objective is more magnified than you might think. “I’m only seeing 2 millimeters square of the slide,” Buckland said, which is about what you’d see looking through the microscope with your own eye. “But I want to see the whole thing,” Buckland said, and so he captures up to 300 to 400 2x2mm tiles and stitches them together. The capturing process can take up to 4 hours per slide, and focusing alone can take an hour or so. The depth-of-field is only around 3.5 microns(!), so precise calibration is necessary to ensure the whole slide stays in focus throughout the capture process.

    Buckland takes a break from lining up his camera to pose for a portrait.

    “I’ve looked at these slices my entire career, and no one has ever really been able to see more than one or two millimeters of the thing at a time [with this detail],” said Dr. Irving. “When you take a slide and you look at it as a geologist, you move it around. But when you move, you lose the context. So there is a practical aspect that these images make for an enhancement of scientific study.”

    The images already look amazing on a 65″ OLED monitor in Buckland’s studio, but of course, on the digital display you can still zoom in to see greater detail – and just keep zooming. But then you’re moving around again, and losing context. So how do you avoid that? You make prints. Really, really big prints.

    Seeing the whole picture

    Neil and his pup, Brian, next to a print in his studio.

    As referenced earlier, one of Buckland’s specialties is stitched panoramic images of vast natural landscapes. The creation of these images was largely inspired by Thomas Hill’s early paintings of what would become some of the United States’ most treasured national parks.

    “I’m obsessed with detail. When I make these giant landscape prints, I want you to stand in front of them and feel like you’re there,” Buckland said. “With this custom rig, I can do that with a micro subject – not just giant landscapes.” Thus, the name ‘microscape’ was born.

    Here’s a sampling of some low-res images of Buckland’s meteorite work (and you can see far more here).

    After spending anywhere from 6 to 10 hours capturing, stitching and cleaning up a meteorite image, Buckland selects a relatively small crop for a final print. His Canon wide-format printer is limited to prints 44 inches wide, so for a 12-foot-wide print, he has to divide the image into strips. These are then painstakingly cut and mounted together, with careful attention paid to a lack of visible seams between the strips. And even though they’re enormous, the detail isn’t exactly lacking.

    After all, prints that large can often fall apart when you’re too close – they’re meant to be viewed at a distance. “That doesn’t work for me,” Buckland said. “I want you to get really, really close to my prints – you can’t get too close, because your eyes won’t be able to focus at that point.” Dr. Irving said that, aside from the educational advantages, “if you have the time to stand in front of it, you can really appreciate it – like all art.”

    What’s next

    A gallery visitor lingers in front of Buckland’s more modest-sized 30 x 40″ prints.
    Photo by Nate Gowdy | Courtesy Neil Buckland

    Dr. Irving continues to bring more samples to Buckland, who continues to photograph them in staggering detail. But Buckland isn’t satisfied yet. In addition to a newly opened gallery showing in Seattle, Buckland aims to produce a traveling exhibition of mammoth prints to be shown at natural history museums and continues to tinker with his photography setup for even better results – including considering Panasonic’s Lumix S1R and its 187MP high-res mode. But in the meantime?

    “I just ordered a 20x microscope objective, which would probably quadruple the number of tiles – which is totally insane.” Buckland said. “There’s just no logical reason to capture that much detail!” he laughs.

    So I ask, why do it then? He points to an enormous, stitched image of El Capitan at sunrise in Yosemite national park hanging prominently in his studio. “Why would you climb such a thing? Because it’s there.”

    Neil Buckland is a photographer based in Seattle who specializes in nature, portrait and product photography. He also runs educational workshops, both at his REDred Photo studio and on location around the world.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Sony a6400 sample gallery updated

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    We’ve spent a little more time shooting with Sony’s new a6400, and as we work towards the completion of a full review, we’ve updated our initial gallery of sample images with additional shooting in and around Seattle. Check out our updated gallery to see what the a6400 can do.

    View our gallery of real-world samples from the Sony a6400

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Secrets of a professional photographer’s workflow: Brian Ach

    Brian Ach is an editorial and commercial photographer.

    As photographers, most of our focus is on capturing images—finding good material and getting shots with all the gear we’ve spent so much time and money accumulating—but what happens next? For a lot of us, we download the images to a computer and edit a handful that catch our eye, and then… well, there are more photo shoots to pursue. Maybe we’ll apply some keywords, perhaps mark a few favorites, but too often the photos we worked so hard to create are just dumped onto a hard disk and forgotten. We know we should do better, but who has the time?

    Professional photographers, that’s who.

    To learn how a pro handles this process, I talked to Brian Ach, who frequently photographs celebrity portraits, high-profile events, and glamorous autos for numerous clients. You may remember his work from his stint as Prince’s official photographer during the musician’s 2011 international tour (the photos he returned to after Prince’s passing in “Purple Reign: Photographer Brian Ach shares his experiences of working with Prince”). He outlined his entire workflow, from preparing to leave for an event through handing off final images and making sure everything is backed up.

    Brian’s outlined his entire workflow, from preparing to leave, through handing off final images and making sure everything is backed up

    Although a professional’s workflow is different from that used by most photographers, there are aspects anyone can use in their own workflow to better manage their library.

    A man of many skills, Brian shoots everything from rock and roll world tours to automotive ads. Shown here: Journey at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

    Understanding Expectations

    To get a sense of how Ach’s workflow may differ from most photographers’ approaches, I asked him to describe the types of high-pressure assignments that he encounters. In most cases, time is the number one factor at play.

    “If I’m shooting an event for Getty or WireImage or AP Images, time is of the essence,” he said. “If you’re doing the red carpet and don’t have an onsite editor, you want to turn around your best pictures as quickly as possible and get them up on the wire so you can get placement and, basically, make money. From the end of the event, the goal is to have everything captioned and up on the site in two hours. That’s the worst case scenario—you’re really looking to do it quicker than that. Often it will be trying to get your top 10 or 15 pictures out in 45 minutes or less.”

    ‘Always import your card immediately after you’re done shooting.’

    He noted that when shooting a big job like the Academy Awards or the Tony Awards, photographers are usually hard-wired via Ethernet cables to editing stations on site where editors send images out as soon as possible. Sometimes he shoots the red carpet as a solo photographer, where there may be on-site runners who collect memory cards every 15 or 20 minutes from each photographer to deliver to editors. And, of course, there are plenty of events where he’s responsible for everything.

    “Usually when I’ve worked with Getty, it’s what they call a hired job,” he said. “I’m often the guy inside the party, which means I’ll have an editor on site. You have 1500 frames and you need to send them out as soon as possible because you want to beat everybody else and get the stuff out correctly.”

    When shooting a high-profile event, it is essential to get your photos up on the wire before other photographers.

    During the Shoot

    Regardless of which type of event he’s shooting, Ach has developed a consistent workflow through years of hard-won experience.

    “I do everything the exact same way every time, because once you have a workflow, you do it the way you do it,” he said. “If you change anything—you have to trust me on this—you will screw it up in a big way. Something will happen. It took me probably my first year-and-a-half to two years, no lie, just to get a workflow.”

    Usually we think of photo workflow as the process that begins after you’re done shooting, but for Ach it’s earlier than you might expect: in his studio preparing to leave, formatting cards and making sure batteries are charged.

    ‘I always keep fresh cards in my right pocket. Cards that I’ve shot on, I keep in my left pocket.’

    “It’s very hard for me to separate out the workflow from shooting,” he said. “When I get to the event, if I know I’m shooting multiple cards I always keep fresh cards in my right pocket. Cards that I’ve shot on, I keep in my left pocket. Always. I’ve learned not to put them back in the bag, or put them in my jacket or anything like that. Right pocket, fresh cards. Left pocket, used cards. So after I shoot the event, I come back to the studio. Whatever is still in my right pocket I just put back in the bag.”

    Celebrity portrait shoots are another high pressure assignment that Brian specializes in – he often has only a few minutes with his subjects to nail the shot. Shown here: Director and screen writer Christopher McQuarrie.

    We’ve all received the advice that it’s best to capture photos correctly in-camera, but in environments like these, it’s even more critical.

    “White balance and exposure are two of my biggest things,” he said. “Put a gel on your flash, create a custom white balance, and then get it right [before the event begins]. I don’t want to have to waste the time afterward processing it. It sounds so obvious, but it’s not if your editor has to tweak your white balance for every shot and you’ve got 100 shots and your red carpet photos are coming out slightly yellow. The editor may not have time to do it—they may need to just send it out.”

    To assist editors, or for his reference later if he’s doing the editing, Ach will mark images during the shoot that stand out, using a camera’s built-in tagging or image-protection features.

    ‘Go out and over-shoot everything and be brutal on yourself when evaluating’

    “You can help your editor by tagging certain photos that are very good or very important,” he said. “You’re not trying to tell the editor how to do their job; you’re simply saying ‘here’s that photo.’ They can look at the previous 10 or 15 frames, or the 10 or 15 afterward, and pick whatever they think is best based on your recommendation.”

    And how does one know which images rise above the others? “It’s training your eye,” he said. “Look at books, look at everything and try to figure out what makes them good. And then go out and over-shoot everything and be brutal on yourself [when evaluating them].”

    Ach mentioned he once shot New York Fashion Week events and had a day where he shot 17,000 frames. “Thank God I had an editor who was very good, and he was able to quickly whittle that down,” he said. “It’s just pattern recognition, and knowing what the shot is and what’s good. And the only way you can get better at that is shooting a lot and looking at a lot.”

    Not all of Brian’s assignments involve models and celebrities.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • DPReview TV: Fujifilm X-T30 vs. Sony a6400

    The Fujifilm X-T30 and Sony a6400 are two of the newest, most exciting mid-range mirrorless cameras on the market, and while they may not look similar at first glance, both include impressive features and performance specs. Chris and Jordan break down the differences to see which comes out on top.

    Get new episodes of DPReview TV every week by subscribing to our YouTube channel!

    • Introduction
    • Design and ergonomics
    • Autofocus
    • Image quality
    • Lens selection
    • Displays
    • Video
    • Wrap-up

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • The word ‘Leica’ is now banned on Chinese social media after controversial ‘Tank Man’ video

    Leica is facing backlash in China following the publication of a video called ‘The Hunt’ set in 1989 during, among other things, the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. In response to the video, Chinese social media website Weibo has banned the use of the word ‘Leica’ — attempts to search for content in English and Chinese using that keyword returns zero results.

    ‘The Hunt’ is a fictionalized video that primarily follows a Western photojournalist who attempts to capture the Tiananmen Square protests using a Leica camera1. Though the video never explicitly mentions the protests, it features the text ‘Beijing, 1989,’ and concludes with the iconic ‘Tank Man’ image as a reflection in a Leica camera’s lens.

    The video went viral on social media in China, where a number of users have lambasted the dramatic reenactment. Soon after, Weibo banned posts containing the word ‘Leica’ due to the video’s ‘violation of relevant laws and regulations or the Weibo Community Convention,’ according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

    SCMP claims Leica didn’t commission and does not sanction the video, which was reportedly produced by Brazillian marketing company F/Nazca Saatchi Saatchi. The news source published a statement from Leica, which expressed regret over ‘any misunderstandings or false conclusions that may have been drawn’ regarding the video.

    The controversy hits Leica amid its partnership with Chinese company Huawei and its plan to launch 20 to 30 new stores in China. Likewise, the video arrives during a particularly tense time for the Chinese government — June 4 is the 30th anniversary of the government’s deadly suppression of the pro-democracy protests.

    For its part, Leica has been criticized for distancing itself from the video, which has been praised by some as a poignant reminder of the pro-democracy movement and the Chinese government’s bloody response. The Communist Party of China censors the Tiananmen Square Massacre and related protests and as such is not expected to make a public statement on the video.

    The video has also drawn criticism across social media for its ‘stereotypical, aggrandizing depiction of the white saviour vs the dangerous, dark, unintellegible “other,”‘ as seen in the above tweet from photographer and filmmaker David Jazay.

    1It’s worth noting the iconic ‘Tank Man’ image was captured on a Nikon FE2 camera through a Nikkor 400mm 5.6 ED-IF lens and TC-301 teleconverter with a roll of Fuji 100 ASA color negative film, not any Leica camera.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Instagram is considering hiding the like counts on photos

    Instagram boasts one billion active monthly users. One is its defining features is the ability to like posts. Recent studies indicate that addiction to social media, and the number of likes received on content, is akin to drug use. Instagram is currently working on a prototype design that will conceal the number of likes on posts. Likes will only be visible to the person who made the post.

    This testing in design change was discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, a prominent reverse-engineering expert who has uncovered many of Instagram’s planned features before they were announced or launched. Wong spotted the tweaks in the Instagram Android code base and has generated the following screenshots:

    The screenshots clearly display the adjustments in design as likes are not visible on the public interface. There is also a ‘View Likes’ button which lists the users who liked a specific post.

    Wong says the test states that Instagram ‘want(s) your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get. During this test, only the person who shares a post will see the total number of likes it gets.’

    Instagram claims it has not tested the feature. In a statement to The Verge, a spokesperson for the company said: ‘We’re not testing this at the moment, but exploring ways to reduce pressure on Instagram is something we’re always thinking about.’

    Wong has also discovered testing for new stickers in Instagram’s Direct Messaging service.

    Instagram has faced a series of challenges this year. Facebook recently revealed that millions, not tens of thousands, of Instagram users had their passwords stored in plaintext. The services co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, also parted ways last September over disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg on the app’s future.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Report: Canon is lowering profit forecast 20% due to shrinking camera sales

    According to a report [partial paywall] from Nikkei Asian Review, Canon is planning to lower its profit forecasts for the 2019 fiscal year by 20 percent — amounting to approximately 50 billion yen — due to shrinking camera sales.

    What’s to blame for this downturn? According to Nikkei, the digital camera and semiconductor markets are shrinking due to the increasing capabilities of smartphone cameras. Below is the full translated section of the report:

    ‘Canon will lower its forecast for the fiscal year ending December 2019. Consolidated operating profit (US GAAP), which indicates the mainstay of the business, is likely to decrease by 20% over the previous fiscal year to just over 270 billion yen. About 50 billion yen lower than the previous forecast. The shrinking of the digital camera market and the deterioration of the semiconductor market due to the functional improvement of smartphones (smartphones) will hit hard.’

    This report echoes the drop in global camera sales reported by the Japanese Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) earlier this month.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Wundershine’s Reframe is designed for easy image-swapping and app-controlled curation

    Back in 2015 Dutch start-up Wundershine announced the Makerframe, a wooden picture frame that could print your images with a built-in inkless thermal printer and swap them out using a built-in framing mechanism. Old prints were stored inside the frame for “re-framing” at a later stage. System control and image curation were performed via a mobile app and a web interface was in planning as well.

    Unfortunately the Makerframe never made it to market. The company says that since the initial announcement it has learned that “for most consumers simplicity, affordability and easy refresh are more important than instant refresh.”

    This is why only a simpler version of the Makerframe, the Reframe, has now been launched and made available for purchase. The Reframe system consists of wall-mounted, wooden picture frames with a slide-in and clamping mechanism. Compatible prints can be ordered via a mobile app and are delivered by mail.

    The frame comes with a hidden slot at the bottom for easy image-swapping and Wundershine says your photos are delivered to your home in the shape of “gallery quality prints on heavy card stock.”

    The mobile app lets you curate an image queue from multiple cloud services and order new prints. The Reframe is available now in solid natural oak and walnut and white and black for 79 Euros ($ 89). A pack of three will set you back 199 Euros ($ 223). All frame purchases include a voucher for a photo pack. Head over to the Wundershine website for more information.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Facebook now says ‘millions of Instagram users’ had their passwords stored in plaintext

    Last month, Facebook shared a blog post detailing how passwords of Instagram, Facebook and Facebook Lite users were stored in plaintext on its servers. At the time, Facebook said only ‘tens of thousands of Instagram users’ were affected. Now, Facebook has updated the post to say ‘millions of Instagram users’ had their passwords stored in plaintext on its servers.

    Facebook claims ‘these stored passwords were not internally abused or improperly accessed’ and says it will notify the users with exposed passwords. Krebs on Security reports more than 20,000 Facebook employees had access to the plaintext passwords, some of which date as far back as 2012.

    Regardless of whether or not you’ve been notified by Facebook of a breach, it would be a good idea to change your Facebook and Instagram passwords as well as the passwords on any other login that shares those passwords.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Nikon Z 24-70mm F2.8 S sample gallery

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    Nikon’s new Z 24-70mm F2.8 S promises a substantial size and weight reduction compared to its F-mount predecessor and a boost in optical quality. We recently received a final copy of Nikon’s latest pro-grade standard zoom and wasted no time taking it out for some shooting.

    Over the course of three days we took the Z 24-70mm F2.8 S for a rainy walk around Portland, a cloudy hike up Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, and a sunny stroll around Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. Take a look at our gallery of converted Raw files to see how the new lens performed.

    Check out our gallery of real-world samples from the Nikon Z 24-70mm F2.8 S

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)