Fruit of the Land

One of the pleasures of living in a part of the world where you’re never far from wild places is the opportunity to harvest some of nature’s abundance.  There are many varieties of berries in Alaska, but my favorite is low-bush cranberry, also widely known as lingonberry.  This small ground-hugging shrub produces maroon-colored berries when fully ripe and are at their best after the first frost.  Don’t wait too long though or the berries will get over-ripe and go soft, or will have already been harvested by other humans, birds, or animals.

Low-bush cranberries keep for quite a while if kept cool, or of course can be frozen.  They’re delicious used whole in breads, pancakes, or muffins, and make wonderful sauces and relishes.  A favorite recipe is for “Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce” from the Alaska Wild Berry Guide and Cookbook.  Credit for the cooking and canning to Robyn.

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Disk Drives for File Storage

Digital photographers have to process and store image files somewhere, either locally or in the cloud.  The demand for space increases with file size, especially when shooting RAW with high-MP sensors, and designing the best array of devices to process, store, and archive image files is challenging.  In most instances hard disk drives (HDD) still afford the most practical and economical solution for at least part of a local system.

The field of HDD manufacturers has changed a bit in recent years, but Western Digital is still regarded very favorably and continues to make improvements in the spinning disk platform.  Just announced are enhancements to their line of WD Black desktop hard drives claiming performance increases of up to 48% in the 4TB model.  That’s a big deal.  Understand that these are premium drives with 7,200rpm spindle speed, 64MB cache, SATA 6Gb/s connectivity, and a 5-year limited warranty, and will cost more than a run-of-the-mill HDD of the same capacity, but the results should be pleasing.  If you go to buy one, make sure you are very specific with the model number (WD4003FZEX for 4TB model) to get the latest version.

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Change of Seasons

Seasons in the far north are on a different schedule from the temperate parts of the globe.  Days are getting shorter at a rapid rate now and yellow leaves are already carpeting the ground.  Anchorage had its first snowfall a week and a half ago, and though the ground wasn’t cold enough yet for it to stick, winter itself isn’t far away—regardless of what the calendar may say.  So the annual surge is on, by both animals and humans, to do all the things needed to be done before the ground is hard and covered with white for another five or six months.  It’s not at all unexpected, but the big change always seems to roll around more quickly than anticipated.

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New Creative Cloud package from Adobe

Looks like “crowd-voicing”—as in large numbers of people complaining very pointedly and loudly—can sometimes have an effect, even on really big companies.

If you use an Adobe photo editing product, you’ve probably followed the mini-firestorm of debate that ensued after Adobe announced some time ago that Photoshop CS6 would be the last perpetual-license version of that venerable tool (as well as for other programs included in the Creative Suite).  The time has come and gone to sign up for Creative Cloud at special introductory rates, but today another package has been offered for photography enthusiasts (as long as you own Photoshop CS3 or later) that I suspect will be relatively well received:  it will include Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5, a Behance Membership with ProSite, and 20GB of Adobe Cloud storage, all for $9.99 a month (limited time offer).

There’s little doubt the industry momentum is decidedly toward a cloud model, and there’s not much an individual can do about it even if one wanted to.  Learning to make it work for you (while keeping copies of your most important data under personal local control) is the challenge.  At first blush this new package offer looks to be a bit of an olive branch by Adobe to a huge installed base of photographers.  Time will tell how well it’s received.

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New Backlights for Top-end Monitors

There’s a change underway in the technology for certain high-end color-critical monitors.  Until recently, cold-cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) were the backlight choice for NEC’s best professional graphics IPS displays, such as the PA271W and PA301W.  Just recently they announced their latest professional wide gamut graphics display—the PA242W—using a new AH-IPS panel using GB-R LCD backlight, which they claim provides a wider color gamut and more color control than displays using white LED backlights.  LEDs in general have a longer useful life than CCFLs and other environmental benefits as well.  And the range of NEC displays using AH-IPS panels is about to expand with PA272W and PA302W models coming next month.  That’s good news for image editors.

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Food Gathering

Summer’s a busy time for collared pikas in Alaska as they gather a variety of vegetation and let it dry in the sun in protected piles and then put it away for a supply of food during the winter.  Their favorite habitat is a jumbled rock slide of large boulders close to harvestable plants.  The boulders provide protection for the pikas themselves and for carefully selected spots for their hay stacks.  Pikas are small creatures only 6-9 inches long and are related to rabbits and hares.  They’re well camouflaged for their environment and often are not even noticeable until they sound off with a high-pitched alarm call.  They’re actually quite tolerant of people if one has enough patience.

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Unusual Style


There are lots of ways to catch fish, even for bears, but this grizzly at Funnel Creek in the Katmai National Preserve is using a style I hadn’t seen before.  Snorkeling isn’t that unusual, but to start from a near-90 degree vertical angle is a bit different.  No report on the success rate.

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Monitors for Imaging

The lynchpin of the digital darkroom is the monitor or display used to optimize image files.  Without a monitor that accurately shows a wide range of colors precisely the same way session to session, all your visual adjustments are arbitrary and you’ll have little or no confidence that anyone else looking at your images on another system will see anything close to what you so carefully created.

There are numerous factors to consider in choosing a monitor, including size, resolution, color gamut, color accuracy, calibration system, connectivity options, and cost.  Size is a personal choice; 24” to 30” models tend to suit most users.  Resolution depends somewhat on screen size and aspect ratio, but usually varies between 1920×1080 pixels and 2560×1600 pixels, though we’re starting to see a few with even higher resolution.  Color gamut has to do with how extensive a range of colors the monitor will show; many inexpensive monitors still only show (approximately) the sRGB color space (the lowest standardized 8-bit color space, and the one still used most widely on the web).  Wide-gamut monitors have become increasingly available the last few years and are important to achieving the best image optimization.  Color accuracy is a function of manufacture and screen quality; more accurate monitors usually cost more.

Calibration seems to be one of the most baffling factors.  The way monitors show colors changes over time.  In order to know what the monitor is showing and to keep it adjusted as it ages, one has to set it up to a specific set of parameters, including white point, gamma, and intensity, and then periodically calibrate and create a new profile for it.  Without starting from a known point and returning to a known point there is no accuracy.  Rudimentary calibration systems use software and a colorimeter to adjust the computer video card’s lookup tables; advanced (hardware calibration) systems use software and colorimeter combinations that are optimized for the specific monitor and store the calibration data in lookup tables in the monitor, not the computer video card.  Hardware calibration is superior and should be part of your system if at all possible.

Proper connectivity is of course necessary to connect the monitor to the video card, though adapters are usually available to make the hookup possible if your ports and plugs don’t match.

Cost is always a factor in any decision, but serious consideration should be given to how important the device is in your chain of creation.  In a camera system the lens is arguably one of the most important factors; in a digital darkroom, I would suggest that the monitor is the most important tool in the post-production workflow.

Among the most recommended imaging monitors at the moment are the NEC PA units.  Considering all the choice factors, The PA271W-BK probably is the top choice of the lot, particularly the SpectraView model which includes a customized wide-gamut colorimeter and proprietary software that is easy to use and ensures the ability to keep the monitor to provide accurate, repeatable results over a long lifetime.

If you’re serious about how you process your digital images you’ll invest in one or more high-quality monitors to facilitate your work.  It will be money well spent!

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New Canon EOS Body

Yesterday Canon announced the latest evolution to their midrange APS-C EOS DSLR line—the 70D.  While it won’t be available until September, by all accounts it looks to be an important upgrade with a host of desirable features.

The most significant new feature is the 20.2MP CMOS sensor of an entirely different design incorporating a “dual pixel” autofocus that which portends much faster and potentially more accurate phase detection AF in live view and movie modes.  The optical pentaprism viewfinder uses the same 19-point AF sensor as the 7D, and the image processor is DIGIC 5+.

Those familiar with the Canon lineup may wonder if the 70D is intended as a replacement for the extremely popular 7D, but we’ll have to wait and see.  Some of the 70D features meet or exceed 7D specs (not surprising since the 7D has been around since mid-2009).  Others are just different, like the Vari-Angle LCD.  For more thorough coverage of features and design see hands-on previews at DPReview and Imaging-Resource.

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Green Again!

It happens every year.  When winter finally decides to give up for a few months and the days actually get a bit warmer, you start to see leaf buds forming on the skeletal branches of birches and cottonwoods.  At first you have to look closely to notice any real difference, but then—usually about the third week of May in Southcentral Alaska—the transformation occurs.  At first all you see is a thin wash of bright chartreuse from the tiny unfolding leaves and then within three or four days the whole countryside is green again.  It’s summer, or at least non-winter.

The change came late this year—a couple of weeks or so—following an unusual snowfall in Anchorage on May 18th that nailed a record for the “longest winter” (from first snowfall to the last).  But it’s happened, and the season is now in full swing.

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