Tag: jim clark

Lightroom 4 Beta Released

January 10, 20121 Comment

I just noticed Adobe has released the Lightroom 4 Beta.  I’m excited to check out the new features.Adobe Lightroom logo

Here are some of the highlights that you can do with the new Lightroom 4 Beta.  If anybody gives it a try, let me know what you think.

  • Bring out detail in highlight and shadows.
  • Create photo books using automatic layouts or select from a variety of page layouts for a custom design.
  • Find, group, and display images by location.
  • Easily organize, view, and edit video clips.
  • Use new local editing tools for white balance, noise reduction, and moiré.
  • Ensure more accurate color in your prints and online images with soft proofing.

You can get a free trial version of Lightroom 4  HERE.

If you still need to upgrade to the latest released version of Lightroom 3, you can find it HERE.

Get your camera and take some photos today!

Jim

Abstract Architecture Photography

January 3, 20122 Comments
Back in early October 2011, I took a trip with my wonderful girlfriend to London and Paris.  I’ve been to both cities several times and have some wonderful photography to show for it.  As much as I love the wonderful old architecture of both locales, I was very keen on seeing and photographing the modern architecture of La Defense in Paris.  The area is much larger than I imagined and I could have spent a couple of full days there exploring.
Lately, I’ve been getting into abstract architecture photography.  I find it interesting the things you can discover in the viewfinder with a long focal length lens.
I think the trick is to try out different angles and perspectives.  Walk around the building or structure.  I find I do best with the camera up to my eye.
Here are a couple of shots I like:
La Defense Abstract
And the Grande Arche:
La Defense Grande Arche Abstract
Look for another post soon.
Jim

New Web Site – jmclarkphoto.com

January 23, 20110 Comments
JM Clark Photo Website

My Photo web site - JM Clark Photo


My new website is live! http://www.jmclarkphoto.com. I decided to make the move to Livebooks to save on cost, ease of posting new photos and now I can also sell prints of my photography.

It’s still a work in progress, but take a look and let me know what you think.

Until next time!
Jim

Panoramas

July 21, 20090 Comments

Certain places just beg to be reproduced panoramically.    You just can’t do some scenes justice with a normal single frame photograph.  I’ve always been interested in panoramas, something about them mesmerizes me.  I guess it makes me feel like I’m experiencing the scene like I did when I was there.

There are a number of methods for taking the shots and probably just as many more methods of stitching the photos together.

You can take panoramas handheld, with a level tripod or with a special tripod head designed specifically for panorama photography.  Nodal Ninja and Really Right Stuff both make panorama heads and I’m sure there are numerous others.  These can be expensive, as with most camera equipment, but produce superb results.  The advantage is the camera can be set up perfectly level and the nodal point, optical center of the lens, can be set.  The Really Right Stuff site has a good explanation (http://reallyrightstuff.com/pano/05.html).  Currently, I take my panoramas with a tripod and a hot shoe bubble level, it seems to work fairly well, but I will eventually purchase one of the panorama heads.

I’ve used several panorama stitching software applications including PTGui and Photoshop.  My favorite is a free program developed by Microsoft Research named Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor).  You can download the program at he Microsoft Research site (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ICE/). I recently used this program to stitch together a handheld panorama of Lake Powell down in Arizona.  The panorama was a total of 6 photos, 2 rows of 3.   I took the pictures fairly quickly as we were about to head back into town.  I didn’t really think it would turn out as well as it did.  As a test of ICE I renamed each photo and opened them out of order just to see if the program could figure out which photo went where.  A couple of minutes of processing later and out came a perfect panorama.

You can see a larger version here.

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Until next time!

Jim

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