Look what I found.. ISO is around 1000 and developed using Raw Developer using very little noise reduction (much less than Sigma Photo Pro applies).. There is some banding seen in the background and I’m curios to know if the new Sigma SD1 has less of that as it’s a bit annoying. (even if only seen at higher ISO’s).  I must say that I believe my SD14 having less of that banding type noise – but I guess it varies beween cameras.

Most viewers would’t care though and just look at the crow as the crow it is! :D

Camera: SD15 Lens: 120-300 @ 176mm Exposure: ISO200 f5,6 1/100s

How big is the buffer on the SD1? How many frames per second? How much space will one shot take? And how many different resolutions will be available?! And will fps change with lower? How well will it deal with shadow noise?! Will highlights still be amazing? How well will existing lenses cope with the 15,5MP x 3 resolution? How good battery life? Will live view be available later?

These are some of the thoughts passing through my mind as I get ready to squeeze the trigger..
Camera: SD15 Lens: 50-500 OS @ 375mm Exposure: ISO400 f6,3 1/60s

Camera: SD15 Lens: 120-300 @ 275mm Exposure: ISO300 f5,6 1/60s

120-300mm bird in flight – iso400

I know this will not really be the final one – because I know I will try hard to get a really awesome shot of the little one using the Sigma SD1. But somehow this shot just came out so beautiful and seeing that bokeh just made me.. wanting to post again. :) It’s sooo creamy!

Hand held wide open @ 450mm at 1/100s. Sigma SD15. Raw Developer.
Click here for Full size. (it’s cropped).

Raw Developer has for many years been a jewelry among developer available for the Sigma raw. I had many letters and raw files exchanged with the creator of RD and  I can’t say how happy I am that we have native support for more or less all Sigma cameras to date. It’s NOT a perfect developer but it has a such neutral and natural view of colors that I feel is really hard to get using any other software.

These were post developed using Lightroom as a green shift on the right side of each shot was left untouched in RD. I had to add a touch of gradient filter to take it away. (a tiny amount of magenta).. I also lifted the chest of the bird in some shots and I switched off noise reduction in RD to further bring those colors out in the open – if you open them at full size you will see some of that.. :)

All shots shot between IS075- 1200 and of course taken with the Sigma 50-500 OS. Hand held.

This was shot using ISO400, I lifted the bird slightly so it’s a bit more ISO in terms of noise. Noise reduction is put at a minium so it’s quite noisy if you look really close. :)

These black and white ones has been heavily cropped and was both shot at very tricky light conditions.. ISO on camera was set to 800 but they had to be pushed some to get the right look. I shot using bracketing with a +0.7 setting to ensure some correctly exposed shots or a shot with useful sharpness. Noise reduction is completely turned off, which gives this really nice tone to the shot.

Tired of this little bird now are you? :D It’s funny how many angles you can find of a bird that only sits still for about a minute only to fly away and stay gone for an hour or two and when people decide to give up he shows again for another minute or so. The orchestra of shutters accompanying his arrival is such music and such fun!

Cropped. Raw Developer. SD15, 50-500 OS @ 413mm  - ISO100  1/50s (this shot was added after article was posted so text talks about below shot only)

SD15 @ ISO1000 (pushed from ISO400), 50-500 @ 500mm

I drove to the same spot today, alone. And it was empty (normally there are plenty of photographers and interested waiting for the kingfisher to show), I turned off my cars engine before reaching the spot so that the bird, if present, wouldn’t be scared. From my window I could see the water and there, on a little stick that others had prepared for people like me, there he was! Sky was cloudy and everything was thick grey – a couple of degrees plus and wet.

I did as I saw others do the day before, I opened the cars window and used the window as support for the Sigma 50-500 OS lens. Distance was a bit too much but I got close enough to see the bird. This shot came out heavily under exposed – shot at ISO400 but pushed 1.5 stops in SPP so it’a really around ISO1000. It’s shot at 500mm so you can imagine that I was sitting pretty far away from this little bird. I couldn’t take more as he flew pretty short after my arrival.

Next time, I wonder if I could hide a couple of flashes somewhere.. I wonder if that would scare him off? hmm.

O 1.3s . f/7.1 . ISO 50 . 16.6 mm

Went to Göteborg (Gothenburg) today and the evening was clear and bright.. I had the DP1x in my pocket and used all kinds of poles, walls etc to support the long shutter speeds necessary. EXIF should be intact incase you want to look closer. All images except the tractor shot was developed using Lightroom 3.3 – Tractor was developed using Raw Developer 1.8.11.

O 2s . f/7.1 . ISO 100 . 16.6 mm

O 3.2s . f/7.1 . ISO 100 . 16.6 mm

O+0.4s . f/4.5 . ISO 100 . 16.6 mm

O 0.8s . f/7.1 . ISO 100 . 16.6 mm

1/8s . f/4.5 . ISO 100 . 16.6 mm


O 0.5s . f/7.1 . ISO 100 . 16.6 mm

O 1.6s . f/6.3 . ISO 50 . 16.6 mm

O 2.5s . f/6.3 . ISO 50 . 16.6 mm

ISO400 @ f4 and 1/6s hand held leaning on car window. Yesterday evening – on my way home from my parents house where I filmed yesterdays movie – the DP1x really comes in handy when scapes (?!) like this appears.

Lightroom 3.2 used to develop and process.

Edit:

I just had to add a Raw Developer version as the latest 1.8.11 has native DP1x support! I used monochrome XDR and saved as 16bit tiff and continued with some post stuff in Lightroom.. Noise reduction is completely turned off (you can find stuck pixels) and sharpness is down to a minimum.  I also managed to save as 11MP without knowing. So, you have a pretty big image to look at if you wanna pixel peep.

Headlines! ahh..

I wanted to give you a little treat. Three shots each developed using one out of three great Sigma RAW developers. I took about a hundred shots of Ester, the dog and my little sister and most of them came home in very good condition. Focusing is fast and snaps into place, most of the time on the correct spot. But I’m looking forward to see how well the 50-500 works together with the SD15. Can I catch a running dog?

First out. Silkypix! Shot was once more wide open (f6,3) and at 450mm. ISO 100. I turned off (more or less) noise reduction in silkypix to gain some natural noise but it did paint a little as you can see if you open up the full version. SPP version is softer but also very nice looking without smear.  Open original size.

Sigma Photo Pro 4 does a very good job, and gives a slightly more warm tone – which fits this image very nicely. Also, details overall looks much better here then with Silkypix. But Silkypix often gives very “pleasing” colors and you have such nice control. mm. f7.1 This one is at a full 500mm. This one in original size. (I did not focus at the dog)

And lastly Raw Developer. Raw developer has such nice controls over RGB curves, lightness, overexposure, sharpness, black and white and noise. BUT it’s trickier to get perfect white balance then most other developers. I was actually helped by having Silkypix open at the same time, showing the same image. You need to know your thing but once you do Raw Developer squeezes out slightly more detail than any other developer and can give very film-like images. This one has noise reduction completely turned off. 373mm. Full size.

Other posts on the 50-500 OS
http://www.rytterfalk.com/category/lens/50-500os/

SD14 and 17-70 OS at play – this time at ISO50 and a pretty slow shutter. I was more or less laying on another sofa to get the right angle but still 1/8s of a second and it’s pretty sharp. :) (I was aiming for her hand). Also, in order not to trick you too much I included the original below, only to show you how much I altered the image from RAW. I added much brightness (totally ok when dealing with ISO50 images) and I also took the freedom to add some yellow sunny tones to the right side. hehe. :D

I used Raw Developer as it gives that extra crispiness that we all love. :)  Full image found here!

Raw Developer is my preferred tool when dealing with images that I think of in terms of black and white and the SD14 is my preferred camera. Last week I had one of my studio classes (that’s when we did the milk thingi) I took some shots when preparing the light – also because I wanted to test a lens that I’ll come back to later.  Raw Developer has lots of interesting settings to play with – today I played with the curve tool and “lightness” channel. Recommended!

This whole post is Bob’s fault and can be viewed as full size (some saved at 200%)

And some in color: (Photo of Dad is ISo200 with noise reduction turned off)

Last shot has been saved at 200% size – Have a look!
OBS! Noise reduction is turned off.. (on all above images)

(See full size version)

Happy New Year 2010!! Well, I’m late, I know. But I just came back from celebrating the new year up at my big sisters place in Brålanda. It’s so far away from everything and Internet hasn’t reached them just yet.. (not). I’m not too often up at her place, it’s a 100km drive (that’s the only good excuse I have not to go there more often and I know she reads this)..

Ah, and you might wonder why I have no splendid pictures of cool firecrackers – Well, it all comes down to luck and really, really bad timing. In Brålanda (a small town of what seams to me to be around 10 people) people have firecrackers but they all live randomly around my tripods position and none of them had ANY understanding of photography or photographers. They could have said: – I’ll let another rocket up right now, and I’ll wait for your signal Carl. But no, they just let them up a little here and there and always in the wrong direction from where I stood with my 20-30s exposure.

Oh well, there is always another one coming!

Now, all these shots has been taken with my Sigma SD14 – some of them using the 120-300 and others using a new lens that I will get back to in a while. (all wider shots). 90% has been developed using SPP with minor adjustments using LR3 before flickry upload. The rest (two shots) has been developed using Silkypix.

Flickr gallery with all shots in full size.

(All above shots except the bird has been shot using the other lens..)

Now, the new year started with lots and lots of snow. We had to stay one extra day because of it. Below you’ll find “extra day with snow and my sisters family”, pictures.


Above shot taken in high speed inside car – zooming out with speed (ever tried that??) trying to get a stable shot.

This guy was driving on a road and he really had no clue where the road was and ended up in the ditch. We stopped and helped. We’re sooo good. :D (Linn helped too) – and YES I do know that car is in focus and not the guys eyes! :P

Not sure how to make a correct white balance when it’s taken when it’s really dark and really cold. This shot is hand held at ISO400 and 1/10s and is mysteriously sharp. hmmm… :)

(Last one is a 100% crop of the picture before that – Snow gives the shot a almost painted effect that I like). :)

UPDATE: Some of these shots has now been redeveloped using Lightroom 3 beta. Just wanted to try the flickr upload function, not sure these looks any better, but contains lots more black. Previous upload was developed using Raw Developer. They’re all in full size available in my flickr account.

The other week, two of my photography students wanted to play with a home built disco strobe. A 50W light connected to a big wooden box with a car battery inside along with a mix of cables.. We turned off all light, put the camera on bulb mode (a students Nikon D60) and started shooting using a trigger.

One guy standing with the strobe controlling speed of strobe and direction – another holding something to shield the light some (barn doors), a third to hold the trigger as long as something happened in front of camera and the rest standing around waiting for their turn.

We did this for about 45minutes, continues flashing light – it was a very strange feeling to turn on the “real” light after and you could feel how much your brain had worked. Felt very very tired!. :) Almost the same feeling as going of a boat after a windy day..

So these shots of nothing serious – Jimmy, the owner of the camera uploaded some of the shots on my FTP – but unfortunately only those of me. ;)

Just came home from a car photo session – an old Ford Escort from the 70th with about 700hp. We drove into a beautiful landscape, my assistant Bengt drove my car, I sat in the trunk with back open. It was cloudy with strong sun now and then, a bit chilly – three nights in a row with frost. Well, the car broke and we were stucked in the middle of nowhere with these little fellows as company. Sun was really low and I tried to shield the 120-300 with my hand without too much success. :D (to my delight)

I developed once more with Raw Developer. I did first with Lightroom but RD gave more filmic feeling. These are ISO200 and 100 – noise reduction turned off. All available as full size at flickr.

Here’s the RAW from the video if you wanna play some yourself. All Raw developers links can be found on the right side. –>

Playing some with RD’s monochome settings. It gives something cool. Pretty dirty if you press the original, both is higher ISO too – a little bit above iso200 (so no extreme amounts) mostly because they came out underexposed.

See resized 200% from above crop.

See resized 200% from above crop.

Nothing much, just a few shots from todays lesson with my yongsters. We used the Elinchrom Quadra plus a raster (no make light spread as little as possible) plus a big softbox in background (behind photographer) to control ambien light. I just finished developing using Raw Developer and made final changes in Aperture with 16bit tiffs. In RD I took away all noise reduction and all (almost) sharpening to get as neutral result as possible.  See my latest youtube video for more info.

These last two black and white shots are actually developed as color and later processed using Silver Efex Pro in Aperture (plugin).