Joe’s latest blog post takes Nikon SB-5000 speedlights and a ton of talented folks to transform portrait subjects from the ordinary to the surreal.
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Swiss lighting manufacturer broncolor has revamped its Scoro E and S studio flash packs to add built-in Wi-Fi functionality that allows users to control them and the heads attached to them via desktop and smartphone applications.
The packs can either create their own network or connect with an existing system so that phones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers running the bronControl app can be used to operate the packs. The company says all the features of the packs and the heads can be accessed via the app, and that heads and packs can be dealt with individually or in groups according to the set-up.
The Scoro packs come in 1600 and 3200 J versions, with the S models offering control of three heads and the E models two, and owners of existing E and S packs will be able to have Wi-Fi added via a factory upgrade.
The packs start at $ 7182.95/£4300+ VAT for the Scoro E 1600 J while the 3200 J version of the S costs $ 14,458.95/£8655 + VAT. For more information visit the broncolor website and the bronControl app download page.
Press release
Thanks to reworked hardware and firmware, the Scoro E and S models now feature built-in WiFi support, enabling the packs to be controlled remotely through not only the existing bronControl app for iOS and Android devices, but also the new desktop versions for Mac OS and Windows computers.
The new desktop version of the software enables photographers to connect their desktop or laptop computers to the Scoro WiFi units, allowing for wireless operation and faster workflow, and it is of course also compatible with all the existing Siros WiFi enabled products.
The Scoro WiFi has functionality for both independent (private mode) and existing local network (enterprise mode) connections, with support for 802.11 b/g/n standards and ‘Open’, ‘WPA’ and ‘WPA2’ encryptions.
Cosmetically, the Scoro WiFi sports a new matt black finish with a soft touch feel to the top control panel.
While the new Scoro E and Scoro S WiFi boasts this exciting new functionality, the prices compared to the respective existing models remains the same, as well as all other functionality/performance.
31.066.12 – Scoro 1600 E WiFi – £4,300 + VAT
31.067.12 – Scoro 3200 E WiFi – £5,825 + VAT
31.046.12 – Scoro 1600 S WiFi – £6,490 + VAT
31.047.12 – Scoro 3200 S WiFi – £8,655 + VAT
The new Scoro WiFi is available now.
Upgrade Possibilities
Existing Scoro E and Scoro S units can be upgraded for WiFi functionality at broncolor’s factory in Basel, Switzerland. Unfortunately, it is not possible to upgrade the older Scoro A2/A4 and Scoro A2S/A4S units. Please contact our broncolor Service Department for more details.
Four years after US Army combat photographer Hilda I. Clayton was killed in a training exercise in Afghanistan, army journal The Military Review has published her final photograph, in an issue focusing on gender equality in the military.
Artists and filmmakers at the Tribeca Film Festival offer differing views on whether virtual reality creates more or less ’empathy’ in viewers than traditional film.
A woman featured in his series ‘In the Shadows of Kolkata’ bears an uncanny resemblance with a subject in a 1978 Mary Ellen Mark photo.
[ By SA Rogers in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]
As railway systems decay in the United States and flourish elsewhere in the world, works of art pop up in train cars and along disused tracks, paying tribute to the journey of a transportation system in transition. Painted murals display works of art across long distances, interior installations make trips more engaging and projects reclaiming abandoned tracks mull over their history and the scars they leave on the landscape.
For Ukraine’s Independence Day, street artist Okuda San Miguel painted an entire train from the Kiev metro network in his signature style, full of rainbow geometry and the faces of animals and people.
Chicago’s public transit system was temporarily transformed into a mobile garden for the Art on Track festival, inviting passengers to walk and sit on grass among lush vegetation as they made their way across the city.
Crochet artist Olek yarn-bombed an entire train, working for two days straight with four assistants to cover an entire locomotive in Lodz, Poland with brightly-colored camouflage-pattern crochet.
Artist Katharina Grosse spray-painted the landscape of one of Philadelphia’s train routes, including abandoned warehouses and stretches of grass, in seven vibrant colors for her large-scale public artwork ‘Psychylustro.’
[ By SA Rogers in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]
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Every time we ask our readers what post production software they use to edit there portrait photography the most common answer is Lightroom. It’s no surprise either – it’s a powerful tool for editing and organising your photos.
However we know when we talk to our readers about Lightroom that while we all know it’s got amazing power that it can sometimes be overwhelming too. Many of you report knowing you don’t use Lightroom to it’s full potential and wish you had a guide to editing your portraits using the tool.
Today we’re excited to announce our new online course, “Lightroom Mastery: People & Portraits“.
If you’ve ever wanted to discover the secrets professionals use to perfect portraits in Adobe Lightroom, then this course is for you.
And for a limited time, you can access over 4 hours of Lightroom training… that’s 32 step-by-step video modules for a massive 50% off the regular price.
This brand new online course from professional photographer Mike Newton will teach you all the Lightroom secrets the pro’s use to retouch portraits and turn average shots into stunning creations.
Mike is a commercial photographer and has worked with clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies like Bayer and Metlife, technology companies like Uber, and clothing brands like Deckers Outdoor Corporation.
Checkout his intro video below to see what you’ll be learning.
No matter what level of Lightroom user you are, you will walk away from this course with huge improvements in the quality of your portrait edits and the speed of your workflow.
The best part is, Mike makes it super easy to understand.
In this course you’ll learn how to use the very best of Lightroom for photos of people including:
Save 50% on this brand new Lightroom Mastery for Portraits Course for a limited time.
PS: as with all dPS products this course comes with a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If for any reason you don’t find it suits your needs please contact our support team and we’ll arrange a refund.
The post A Step by Step Guide to Processing Portraits in Lightroom by Darren Rowse appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Author Matthew Walsh voices his concerns about the lack of female surf photographers, and what he’s personally doing to recognize them.
Photographers rarely think twice when it comes to buying expensive camera bodies or high-end lenses, but often seem willing to skimp on a monitor. Why is that? In many cases, it’s because one monitor appears very much like another, especially when purchased over the internet, which is how many of us shop for such things.
This article will help you know what you should look for in a monitor, and show you how to interpret many of the tech specs you’ll see when shopping online. Not so long ago, buying a monitor for photography was an expensive business, but today there is more choice available at every price point.
By Senado Federal
One of the things you must think about when choosing a monitor is panel technology. The “panel” is the main part of the monitor — the screen. It includes polarizing layers, glass substrates, a liquid crystal (LCD) layer, and a color filter. It’s a high-tech sandwich.
The main difference between monitor technologies lies in the way the liquid crystals are oriented, which fundamentally affects the way your monitor behaves. Here are the main three panel types:
These type of panels are often favored by gamers for their fast response times, which reduces unwanted ghosting and blurring effects in moving pictures. The biggest downside of TN panels is that their viewing angles are greatly inferior to other panel types. If you move in front of the screen, the color and contrast are liable to shift in appearance. This flaw varies in severity between monitors.
Be aware that, in monitor specs, viewing angle numbers are highly misleading. They’re based on a lenient contrast test, so you should ignore the common claim that a TN panel has 170/160° horizontal and vertical viewing angles. Those figures bear little relevance to what you’ll experience when editing a photo.
Laptops are almost always made with TN panels, which makes them sub-optimal for photo editing in a perfect world. They’re more usable if you can fix your position in front of the screen and maintain a consistent viewing angle.
Image from Maxpixel CC license.
Plane Switching panels are consistent in appearance from almost all probable viewing angles. In this respect, they are far superior to most TN panels and better than VA panels. IPS panels are also favored for their innately high-quality color reproduction. In most regards, a monitor with an IPS panel is better for photo-editing than one with a TN panel.
A drawback of IPS technology is a phenomenon known as “IPS glow”, which is a glowing effect that appears across much of the panel when viewing dark screens in subdued light. The more money you spend on an IPS monitor, the less likely you are to encounter this, but it’s probably fair to say that it’s more problematic for gamers. IPS glow is different to backlight bleeding, where light appears to seep out from the edges of the screen. That, too, is more likely in budget or mid-priced monitors.
There are various sub-categories of IPS panel, including S-IPS, e-IPS, H-IPS, and P-IPS. The basic benefits of an IPS panel apply to all of them, though the different types may vary in areas like color depth or response time. An e-IPS panel, for instance, is usually cheaper because it typically runs a lower color depth (i.e. 6-bit) than other IPS types. We’ll look at color depth anon.
Proprietary technologies that are similar in behaviour to IPS panels are Super PLS (Samsung) and AHVA (AUO).
These type are not considered as good as IPS in terms of their viewing angles or color reproduction, but better than TN panels in both respects. They are a kind of a happy medium. The technology is relatively rare, but still used by some of the leading manufacturers in a minority of displays (the proper word for monitors).
A VA panel typically has a bigger contrast ratio than an IPS panel, with an ability to display dark tones and blacks very effectively. Big contrast ratios are not always as desirable to photographers as they are to gamers, however, because they make it harder to imitate the dynamic range of a print when soft-proofing.
Image courtesy Wiki-Media Commons.
There is no right or wrong answer when deciding whether you should buy a standard or wide-gamut monitor, but there are pros and cons attached to either choice. Let’s look at some of them:
Pros
Cons
Pros
Cons
Rather oddly, I run standard gamut and wide-gamut monitors side-by-side, and the difference in colors is marked. However, with monitors as with many other things, ignorance is bliss, you don’t miss what you never had.
Image from unsplash CC license.
You’ll find the cheapest monitors typically have a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is fine for watching movies, but a 16:10 aspect ratio is worth aiming for if you can afford it. The latter allows a little more vertical working space and, as Wiki observes, is a closer fit for the classic 3:2 ratio used in many photos.
For many years, a myth circulated that said your photos should have a 72ppi resolution for the web. In fact, as most of us now know, a monitor screen is oblivious to image resolution. This is proven, if proof is still needed, by the fact that Photoshop’s “Save for Web” feature does not attach resolution to images, even though they appear as 72ppi when reopened.
Image courtesy of Wiki-media Commons.
Although several factors may affect the sharpness of an image on your screen (e.g. contrast, anti-glare filters, viewer-to-screen distance), the central thing that dictates sharpness is the monitor’s pixel density, or dot pitch. A greater pixel density or a finer dot pitch is indicative of a sharper onscreen image, all other things being equal. If you google “dot pitch calculator” or “PPI calculator”, you’ll find an easy means of calculating the pixel density of any screen.
As an example, an average desktop monitor might have a pixel density of around 90-100 ppi, while the 27” 5K iMac with Retina display has a pixel density of 217 ppi. That’s impressive in a big screen.
An extremely dense pixel pitch tends to have a flattering effect on photos, just like every photo looks sharp on a smartphone, but isn’t a necessity for efficient photo editing.
Photo from Pixabay, CC0 public domain license.
These days, “bigger is better” seems to be the mantra when it comes to choosing a monitor. Of course, it is pleasant to view your photos on a big screen, but my advice is to buy what you can afford and don’t give precedence to screen size over other important attributes. Also remember that big screens need big resolutions to look as sharp as smaller screens from the same distance, so don’t be deceived by pixel dimensions alone. Scrutinize the pixel density, as outlined above.
Apart from Apple iMacs, nearly all desktop monitors are equipped with anti-glare filters for the obvious purpose of cutting out distracting reflections. This creates a matte finish to the surface of the screen. The degree to which this affects the sharpness of the screen image varies a lot, ranging from imperceptible to adding a noticeable grainy effect. You might make an analogy with glossy versus matte prints; the glossy print typically looks a little sharper.
An anti-glare filter is not something to be avoided in a monitor (almost impossible, anyway), but it is worth researching how much it affects the image in your desired screen before buying. Ideally, of course, it’s a good idea to get a look at a monitor before investing. Always check negative reviews when buying online.
Photo by Rawpixel CC license.
On to a slightly complicated subject, which we’ll attempt to keep simple. Color depth relates to how many distinct colors a monitor can display.
Theoretically, the more colors a monitor can display, the more smoothly it can reproduce gradual changes in tone and the less prone it is to frustrating “banding” or posterization effects (characterized by ugly pixelated blocks of color).
Most monitors on the market have one of the following two specs:
The second of these uses dithering to create colors that aren’t there, which is theoretically inferior to a monitor that can natively display 8-bit color. A monitor with 6-bit color is more prone to banding problems, as previously described.
Note that calibrating a monitor increases the likelihood of banding, so more color depth offsets this and effectively makes a monitor more adjustable. Laptop screens nearly always use 6-bit color, so should ideally be calibrated conservatively.
You may see 10-bit color in more expensive monitors. This, again, could be genuine 10-bit color depth or 8-bit + FRC. Bear in mind that a 10-bit monitor can only display its 1.07 billion colors if 10-bit is supported by your graphics processor, software and video connection.
Hardware LUT calibration is a fancy feature you’ll find in some high-end monitors from Eizo and NEC as well as a few consumer brands.
Image courtesy of Wiki-media Commons.
An LUT is a lookup table, which maps the input signals from your PC into, typically, 8-bit RGB color output from your LCD monitor.
In a monitor, greater color depth allows for smoother, more nuanced tonal transitions without banding. Like a monitor, an LUT may also vary in its color depth; the more colors it can process, the better the monitor will be at displaying smooth tones and precise color.
The above is true even if the final output is an 8-bit monitor, so a 10, 12, 14, or 16-bit LUT produces better color in an 8-bit monitor than an 8-bit LUT. The difference between a 10-bit and 16-bit LUT may be less appreciable.
The type of hardware calibration under discussion here doesn’t refer to use of a hardware device like a Spyder. Instead of storing an 8-bit LUT in your video card, like most monitors do, expensive graphics monitors usually have a high-bit LUT built-in to their own hardware for more refined calibration. You’ll still use a calibration device to measure your monitor’s color, but the final color reproduction should be superior.
Expensive graphics monitors often allow you to store and switch between calibration profiles, so you can alter calibration settings with the click of a mouse using proprietary software. This is impossible in normal monitors, where calibration data is loaded into the video card LUT on startup and not changeable without recalibrating your monitor.
When choosing a monitor for photography, panel type is king. If you buy the best IPS (or equivalent) monitor you can afford, the other features are frosting on the cake. Good luck!
The post How to Choose the Right Monitor for Photo Editing by Glenn Harper appeared first on Digital Photography School.