Recently in Digital Photography Category

I didn't see this anywhere in the owner's manual, so I thought I'd jot this down for the other XTi owners (not sure about the XSi, but I'll bet this feature is on most Rebels from the last generation or two.). Once you've chosen an Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB) range, you can use the Aperture/Exposure compensation button (Av +/-) on the back of the camera in combination with the main dial to "slide" your chosen AEB range up and down the EV scale ( -2..1..0..1..+2 ). You'll be centering your AEB range within the range of -2 and +2EV, so if you are using -1/+1EV AEB centered on -2EV, your range would be -3EV to -1EV. With -2/+2 EV AEB range, you can go from -4EV to +4 EV.

Now the nagging question: Canon, why limit us to only 3 exposures in AEB? There doesn't seem to be a reason we could have 5 or 7 or some other configurable number of exposures? Also, why not allow us to select a wider AEB range? When shooting for HDR, I need to take consecutive shots without moving the camera. I'm already using a tripod and wireless remote, but if I want more than -2/+2EV, I have to stop, change the settings (thus moving the camera) then continue, hoping I didn't move the camera too much and complicating post-processing. Why not allow -3/+3EV or -4/+4EV spreads on the AEB range (keep in mind my earlier suggestion of more AEB exposures in a given range.)

The Alabama Nature Center at Lanark is a 350-acre wildlife preserve that serves as the headquarters of the Alabama Wildlife Federation. It is located between Millbrook, AL and Prattville, AL, just north and east of exit 179 (Cobbs Ford Road) on I-65. The facility is currently only open to the public one weekend a month (the third weekend.)

If you are a nature buff, a photographer, or just like to catch some fresh air, you should take some time out of your weekend to visit and explore the facility. They've got over 5 miles of beautifully-built walking trails organized in 3 loops around the property. They are all marked with interpretive signs about the flora and fauna you'll see around you.

Price is currently $4/adult/day and $2/child (3-9)/day. Kids under 3 are free. They also have season pass pricing.

(Every third weekend of the month)
Saturday 8:00 am to 6:00 pm
Sunday 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Directions and more information can be found at the following link.

Alabama Nature Center @ Lanark

Photo Gallery >> Lanark
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I'm interested in taking pictures behind-the-scenes, behind closed doors where the general public isn't allowed on an everyday basis. If anyone has the authority to arrange (or can point me to the appropriate contact to get proper permission) for such an opportunity I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm looking for interesting venues or scenes.

I'm thinking along the lines of:

• Anywhere abandoned
• Warehouses (new and old)
• Factories
• Junk yards/Recycling
• Automotive Salvage/Scrapyards
• Stadiums
• Roofs or high floors of tall buildings (with an interesting view)
• Abandoned equipment
• Inventory (large amounts of items in stacks, piles, rows)
• Scrap piles
• Shrines or churches (occupied or abandoned)

I'm based in Prattville, Alabama and am most interested in opportunities within a day's drive or a 1-state radius outside of Alabama, but would be interested in discussing any other opportunities.

If you want your organization's name included with the shots when they are displayed, I can include it. If you'd prefer anonymity, I can leave the organization's name out. If you are looking for promotional imagery, I'd be glad to discuss usage

Anyone with information or leads can contact me at speed-up@transmit.net. Any leads are appreciated.

My collection of things you'll only see in Alabama.

The Alabama Nature Center at Lanark is a 350-acre wildlife preserve that serves as the headquarters of the Alabama Wildlife Federation. It is located between Millbrook, AL and Prattville, AL, just north and east of exit 179 (Cobbs Ford Road) on I-65. The facility is currently only open to the public one weekend a month (the third weekend.)

If you are a nature buff, a photographer, or just like to catch some fresh air, you should take some time out of your weekend to visit and explore the facility. They've got over 5 miles of beautifully-built walking trails organized in 3 loops around the property. They are all marked with interpretive signs about the flora and fauna you'll see around you.

Price is currently $3/adult/day or $5/adult/weekend and $2/child (3-9)/day $3/child/weekend. Kids under 3 are free.

(Every third weekend of the month)
Saturday 8:00 am to 6:00 pm
Sunday 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Directions and more information can be found at the following link.

Alabama Nature Center @ Lanark

Photo Gallery >> Lanark
sm med lg	sm med lg	sm med lg	sm med lg	sm med lg

I was contemplating how much filter factor (light cutoff) I get with a cheapo Quantaray Circular Polarizing filter that I inherited when I bought my Canon 50mm f1.8 second-hand. It finally occurred to me that I could switch over to M (Manual) mode on my camera, aim it at something, dial in an exposure (I happened to set it to '0'), then drop the filter over the lens and watch the exposure level indicator ( -2..1..0..1..+2 ) adjust (usually downward) and note how many stops the exposure dropped. The camera focuses and meters through-the-lens (TTL) (and thus through-the-filter), so it takes this into consideration anyway when metering a scene.

For my 52mm Quantaray Circular Polarizing filter, the exposure drops 1 1/3 stops. I'd been working with the filter on most of the time, not realizing that I was losing 1 1/3 stops unintentionally, turning the "nifty fifty" f/1.8 effectively into a f/2.8. Oops, lesson learned, check your filters out.

I got a Canon Rebel XTi (400D) several months back and I'm immensely enjoying expanding my knowledge and horizons. I moved to the XTi from my 3.3MP Sony Mavica MVC-CD300 workhorse point and shoot camera. Despite being quite comfortable with the Sony (and its limitations) I have frequently said that I felt like a complete beginner again when staring through the viewfinder of my Canon.

I was contemplating all the different settings on the XTi that can be chosen for each shot the other day and I decided to toss them in a table:

A little math reveals: 61,749,528,383,550,522,560,348,160,000 combinations! That's 61.8 octillion (a trillion quadrillion or a billion billion billion (those outside the US refer to this to a quadrilliard))! Another way to look at this is 6.1x10^28, estimates of the number of atoms in the observable universe range in the 10^77 to 10^79 range. Those are some big, big numbers! No wonder I feel like a beginner again. Not all the settings will make a viable or desirable image, but there is the big picture math on the issue.

A typical photographer (me) usually only changes a couple of these at a time and usually through a limited range of the settings for each option, so it's not as impossibly complex as it looks. As with all technology, I look forward to seeing where this technology goes in my lifetime. The Canon Rebel XSi is out next month with even more options...

I recently washed (and dried) an off-brand SD Card full of photos through the washer and drier. To my surprise, all the data was still there, undisturbed and uncorrupted. I'm quite amazed that the technology stood up to that kind of abuse with no glitches. I'm not planning on trying this with my CF cards any time soon, but I wonder how they would fare...

I was preparing the annual family photo calendar when I bumped into a wall of stupidity that astonished me: The major photo and gift printing sites (Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodak/Ofoto) have dumbed down their sites to such a low standard that you can't do simple things like put a square-cropped image on a photo calendar page without having their system mangle your image.

To the photo/gift printing sites: Not every photograph is 4:3 or 3:2 aspect ratio rectangle.

I gathered together my 13 images (12 months + cover), adjusted and cropped them in Bibble Pro (an awesome photo workflow and RAW conversion software that runs on Linux, Mac and Windows,) went to upload them to Shutterfly (who I used last year to make the calendar and with whom I successfully used square-cropped images last year) and quickly found that a couple of my square-cropped images (aspect ratio 1:1) were having the top and bottoms automatically chopped off by their system in an effort to force my square image into the rectangle it wanted. I had some wide shots cropped at 16:10 aspect ratio and it did the same thing, chopping off significant portions of the left and right part of my image. Frustrated, I went to Snapfish (despite previous problems with getting photos delivered in a timely fashion during the holiday season.) and found a slightly different interface with the same behavior mangling my photographs. OK, they can't all be the same,right? I went to Ofoto (now Kodak) and had the exact same problem. At this point I had a couple hours into what I thought was going to be a half hour project and was thoroughly frustrated.

I searched Google and came up with a photo and gift printing site I hadn't heard of before. Quite frustrated at this point, I visited Vista Print and was pleasantly surprised. They have standard cropping behavior, but they also provide a simple "Scale to Fit" option that lets you keep the aspect ratio and expand the image to either fit the height or width without cropping your picture. How hard is that? A simple option in the user interface that let's more advanced users creatively build their calendars the ways they want to.

Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodak/Ofoto, please add some sensible options to your cropping step. Something simple like a hidden "advanced options" dialog, a "no cropping" option, or a "scale to fit" option. This would meet all your users needs without confusing the brain-feeble amongst us.

Next year I probably won't bother with the "big guys". Vista Print meets my needs and the calendars I received from them (very timely delivery) looked great. All the above mentioned sites work fine with Firefox on Ubuntu (Gutsy Gibbon) for the record. Some of the drag-to-web upload functionality (Shutterfly) appears to be Windows-only, but everything else functions fine.