Photophys.com: The Science of Photography

What is a Fake Photograph?

Comments[0] 08:07PM May 23, 2013 by Charles in General

We are bombarded with images from television, computer screens, newspapers, and magazines. There are advertisements, illustrations for news stories, snapshots from social media, and on and on. From time to time there are news stories expressing outrage about manipulated photographs in advertisements and, heaven forbid, enhanced photos in news stories. There are rants about “fake” photographs, and prestigious publications such as the New York Times proclaim their purity. In the nytco web site¹ we find, “Images in our pages that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way.”

The complete article (507 KB pdf) can be found here.

Also, the article has been published on Luminous-Landscapes.

Samyang 14mm Lens: Revisiting the Hyperfocal Distance

Comments[0] 02:06PM May 13, 2013 by Charles in General

I recently purchased a Samyang (Rokinon, Bower, Walimex) 14mm lens after reading glowing reviews of it. For example: “It is insanely great” Tim Ashley’s Blog, “ I think it’s an insane bargain for a very sharp lens” Roger Cicala of Lensrentals, and “…may be the surprise product of the season.” Photozone.de. Overall this is a great lens, and similar lenses from the big name manufacturers cost five times as much. However, one should be aware that the Samyang beast is strictly mechanical. One must get used to that. There is no electronic contact with the camera for focus or exposure. Fortunately, focus is manageable given the large depth of field; and exposures are sort of automatic on my Canon camera in the aperture priority mode.

The complete article (414 KB PDF) can be found here.

What is the Canon 6D Good For?

Comments[0] 11:21AM May 04, 2013 by Charles in General

One gets the impression that the Canon 6D was designed without serious consideration about what the competition might do. The 6D is an affordable full frame DSLR, but its feature set looks very weak when compared with that of the recently released Nikon D600.^1,2 The D600 offers 14 stops of dynamic range at low ISO,³ a 24 megapixel sensor, dual card slots, 39-point AF system with 9 cross-type AF points, built-in flash, and 100% viewfinder coverage. In contrast, the 6D lags in all these areas and is missing the dual card slots and the flash unit. As some compensation, the 6D offers build-in Wi-Fi and GPS. In essence the 6D is a full frame version of the Canon 60D (APS-C sensor) with the serious omission of the flash and the articulated LCD screen.[Read More]

The Effective F-Stop of Your Macro Lens

Comments[0] 01:45PM Apr 07, 2013 by Charles in General

I am doing macro photography with focus stacking again and that has forced me to revisit depth-of-field calculations as well as diffraction broadening effects. In both cases the effective F-stop of the lens is an essential parameter. So what is the effective F-stop of my macro lens? 

Update to corrections for SCP

Comments[0] 04:07PM Mar 18, 2013 by Charles in General

The latest printing of "Science for the Curious Photographer" is identified by the CRC Press logo that appears at the lower right hand corner of the front cover, on the spine, and on the back cover.  Most of the typos have been corrected, but unfortunately a few remain.  The updated list of corrections with the remaining ones shown in red can be found here.

Should APS-C Camera Users Consider Moving to the Micro Four Thirds (mFT) Format

Comments[0] 03:21PM Mar 03, 2013 by Charles in General

These comments concern mainly amateur nature photographers who would like to reduce the size and weight of their gear. I am the happy owner of a Canon 7D that I use primarily for wildlife photography with telephoto lenses. I also use a Canon 60D for landscapes, macrophotography, and night sky photography. When I travel with two camera bodies and a set of lenses including my Canon 100-400mm, my backpack is too heavy. Why not switch to one of the new mFT cameras and cut the weight by a factor of two? The Michael Reichmann’s recent review¹ of the Olympus OM-D on Luminous-landscape.com and the in depth review² of the same camera on Dpreview.com indicate there will be little, if any, loss in image quality relative to APS-C with the smaller format.[Read More]

Landscape Astrophotography without Star Trails

Comments[0] 12:11PM Mar 02, 2013 by Charles in General

I like to photograph the night sky in such a way that the stars appear to be bright points of light and not lines or streaks. This is possible if the exposure time is adjusted so that the images of the stars move on the camera sensor by amounts that are not evident in enlarged images.  My calculations of the required exposure times are described in the following pdf document.

Landscape Astrophotography without Star Trails (647kb)

Latest printing of "Science for the Curious Photographer"

Comments[0] 11:38AM Mar 02, 2013 by Charles in General

“Science for the Curious Photographer” is now being shipped with the corrections that I have reported. Also, I am happy to note that photographs, illustrations, and tables have been appropriately improved. I did not see any indication that this is a “second printing.” One way to check that you have a corrected copy is to look at Table E.1 in Appendix E. In the latest printing, the table contains a left hand column giving numbers 1 – 17 for the rows.

You can find all of the reported errors listed in my December 6, 2012, blog entry. There is also a link to high resolution copies of the photographs.

Corrections for the first printing of "Science for the Curious Photographer"

Comments[0] 09:34PM Dec 06, 2012 by Charles in General

Errors and typos found in the first printing of SCP are listed here.

Focusing on stars for night sky photography

Comments[1] 06:37PM Aug 11, 2012 by Charles in General

Years ago I enjoyed astrophotography with an Olympus OM-1 35mm camera mounted on a 5” Celestron telescope, but only recently have I realized the accessibility of great astrophotography to anyone with a DSLR and a tripod. Night sky photography is so much easier and better now with digital cameras. If you have not discovered the wonders of the sky at night, I suggest you look at Manel Soria’s article on Landscape Astrophotography at Luninous-Landscape.com. Also Phil Hart’s eBook, Shooting Stars, provides an excellent introduction.[Read More]

Southern Utah again and again with a bit of Arizona

Comments[0] 10:34PM Jul 04, 2012 by Charles in General

We only discovered the scenic wonders of Southern Utah in 2011, and we have made up for lost time by visiting there two more times since then. Our first visit was in the spring of 2011, and I reported on that trip in my post of July 11, 2011. We returned in the fall of 2011 and revisited Arches, Canyonlands, and Bryce Canyon NP’s.[Read More]

Iceland Anyone?

Comments[1] 05:50PM Jul 02, 2012 by Charles in General

Iceland is only about five hours from New York, and probably offers the greatest scenic diversity in the world for an area only about the size of West Virginia. I hardily recommend Iceland for interesting vacations and wonderful nature photography. We visited Iceland in 2006 and took the Ring Rider road trip that was offered by Iceland Air. That included a car and “farm stays” spaced around the island. We saw magnificent waterfalls, geothermal areas, an arctic lagoon filled with ice bergs, and a variety of arctic birds. On top of that, there is European history dating from 870 CE, and ancient Nordic myths in the form of sagas.[Read More]

iPad 2 versus the “new” iPad: How much resolution is enough for photographers?

Comments[1] 01:53PM May 24, 2012 by Charles in General

A great use for iPads is the presentation of photographic portfolios. Indeed the images are beautiful, and they tend to have greater impact than similar sized paper prints. Now a new iPad has been released that offers twice the resolution of iPads 1 and 2. So the obvious question is, “how much better will my photographs appear?”  To read my conclusions download the following document:

Resolution - iPad 2 vs new iPad (394kb pdf)

Readers are requested to report typos in Science for the Curious Photographer

Comments[0] 09:27AM Mar 03, 2012 by Charles in General

Please report typos and suspected errors in SCP either in a comment here or directly to: csjj36 at earthlink dot net.  An updated list of corrections will be reported here and will be used for the next printing of the book.  Thanks, I appreciate your help.

Updated Corrections

Comments[0] 02:55PM Feb 18, 2012 by Charles in General

Another typo (page 29) has been found in the book "Science for the Curious Photographer" which was not in the original eBook.  It has been included in the list of corrections shown here.