Per'sPage

Jeg har lavet en vejledning til at sætte en MythTV platform op på en Asrock ION platform, som du kan finde under IT notes. Kommentarer kan gives her i forbindelse med denne post, eller du kan mail’e mig direkte.

Making white really white is not always easy. Or, to be more precise, shooting on a white seamless background, trying both to make it truly white and at the same time getting the foreground correctly exposed, is a delicate balance. If you underexpose the background, it will not be white and there will be a lot of photoshop’ing needed. If you overexpose it, you will probably have a lot of flare and reduced contrast and also quite some photoshop’ing to be done…

Simon plays the sax (white seamless)

There are, however, good explanations on the net (and unfortunately also some that has less good advice). The best I’ve seen are the installments by Zack Arias. Read those 5 parts, and you will be able to do it yourself.

In my case, I only needed to shoot silhouettes. I thought that would be easier, and it may very well be. But if you don’t have a really large room or have painted the walls in your makeshift studio/living room completely black, there will be a lot of light spill anyway, and some photoshop’ing will still be needed.

I hung up my 2.72m super white seamless roll after having removed parts of the furniture in the living room; those rolls are indeed quite wide… Using a couple of flashes on the background made it as white as I needed with some careful placement, and I then ended up placing another couple of flashes behind the model, Simon, in order to create a rim light on him and to make the floor almost white. I didn’t have any tiles to put on the floor, as Zack otherwise recommends, so I needed the flashes. Thus, I initially set them up to whiten the floor, but ended up being very happy that they also worked as rim lights!

I should probably have placed a black piece of molton or similar on the closest wall to kill some of the light spill, but I didn’t.

My Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 was on the camera, and even if I had planed to use the 35mm f/2, I stayed with the zoom that worked surprisingly well with little flare. I have tried using the 85mm f/1.8 for similar types of shots earlier, but it does not work well; there is a lot of loss of contrast. Probably the 105mm f/2.8 VR would be better for that — I’ll have to test that some other time.

After a bit of photoshop’ing (or actually, lighroom tweaking), the shots came out as you can see here. This particular one is not a silhouette, which is what I needed, but I like it a lot as it is here. Yes, there are some flaws that should have been corrected (like the shadows around the feet — probably needs a reflecting tile to fix). The vignette is created in post, by the way, and is not a flaw in capture. If you study the gallery, notice that the rim light helps a lot to create definition around the right hand, like seen in some of the silhouettes. It was not really planned that way initially, but I’m sure glad I put it there!

There are more in the gallery, where you also find the silhouette versions.

Hvis du er kommet her fordi du leder efter billeder af Maria og Kasper’s hyggelige aftenbryllup i Roskilde Baptistkirke, så klik her.

Hvis du leder efter billeder af Fresco, og ikke kun vil se det bedste billede, så kan du både finde et mindre udvalg samt alle billederne ubehandlet.

Billeder fra Mariager 2008 ligger nu her på serveren. Der er primært billeder fra et par koncerter, men også lidt andet billedemateriale.

Hvis du gerne vil bruge billederne, så send venligst en mail først.

Sættet med sange (og en del andre) som blev brugt de fleste aftener ligger også tilgængeligt i Worship Assistant format. Hvis du ikke allerede bruger Worship Assistant kan du downloade en demo udgave til PC (kan også køre under Linux under f.eks. Wine). Inde fra “File” menuen vælger du “Restore” og peger på det sæt du lige har downloadet (en .zip fil), så får du en komplet kopi af databasen. Husk at lave en backup af dit eget sæt først, hvis du har lagt sange ind — ellers risikerer du at overskrive dine egne data som så går tabt!

If you follow any of the popular photography related forums on the net, you will find frequent discussions on the Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8. As I have been having mine adjusted, I decided to test it to try to uncover the root cause of some of the complaints about soft sides.

The page can be found here: Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8.

Feel free to leave your comments here at this blog entry.

The picture above illustrates the theme “Pass It On!”. Click on it to see a larger version.

I had this idea of a relay race, with a dad passing on the baton to his son — only in this case, the baton would actually be a Bible.

First problem to overcome was to find a course with clear track marks, to show clearly what is going on even with a tight crop. Most of those around this area are pretty much worn down, but the “model” above (my younger brother) figured Google Earth could locate one for us. Indeed it did, and off we went!

Next problem was that the track was actually only accessible to those with a key… which of course could not be seen from Google Earth Luckily, after a few minutes, a marathon runner using this for his training session appeared and let us onto the track.

Initially I set up for shots using the 70-200mm at the long end to make it look more like a traditional sports shot with a wide aperture using continuous AF (which I always have enabled, using the AF-ON button on the D200). However, as often happens, towards the end of the session I wanted to do something different, and made a few shots with the 17-55 at the widest end, just to have something completely different also. Due to the fast pace and the proximity of the models, I pre-focused and put the camera on a middle aperture, to make sure most of the important stuff would be in focus.

Back home I went through the shots, and figured that the wide perspective actually gave a more dramatic appearance, and this is now the shot that I prefer. However, the jury is still out, and let’s see what the will editor pick. You can see a few more from the series here.

The lesson learned: I had 100+ traditional shots and 5 or so of the wideangle stuff. There is probably a 2-3% keeper rate of the traditional shots, and around 50-60% keeper rate amongst the last ones. And I often find it so: Either the very first shot is the best or then the very last ones are.

So either you know exactly what you want, and go for that — before the model(s) wear out — or then you keep on experimenting until you feel you have “the right shot”. And in this case “wearing out the model” is quite literally what happened: Quite a few passes (at full speed, of course) had to be done before I got this shot.

Thanks to Claus and Christoffer, and to Rie for the the challenge.

So June ended up being the wettest month ever recorded in history. 150mm rain appeared around here, and most of this fell in the later part of the month — and probably half of it in one or two rather wet days.

However, rain is not bad for photography, and often gives nice photo opportunities, if one resists the temptation to stay inside.

Here is one shot, done with the 105mm f/2.8 VR.

The beauty of VR is that it actually works quite well, even in near-macro settings. As long as you are not too close, hand held is often quite OK. Processing was done with Lightroom version 1.1. I still like the Nikon Capture and NX colours better, but Lightroom is nice for organizing and browsing photos.

By the way, I installed the Lightbox plugin that allows images to overlay the present page. Click on the image above to see how it works.

… ok, in case you don’t know: There aren’t terribly many palm trees living natively in Denmark, and this is probably as close as you get to such a thing — with “close” here of course having a subtle dual-meaning, since it is a macro shot

It may be a slightly unusual macro shot, but it is depicting a leaf on an oak tree in our garden, just about to unfold, with the setting sun in the background.

It is taken with the Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 VR macro at f/5.6 @ 1/2500th. I guess the bokeh seen in the setting sun is a combination of the real bokeh of the lens and some internal reflections, but whatever strange character it has, I feel it just adds to the image.

As usual, click the image to see it larger.

Anyway, just to show that not all is about disk crashes and computer problems. The server now seems to be fully back in business, and hopefully the new disk will last for some years before it needs to be replaced!

I guess it is inevitable… hard disks crashes from time to time.

Mine did at least, and it isn’t even the first crash that has happened on me.

So… restoration from backups and from Google’s cache is ongoing.

If you’re looking for something that should have been here or at www.citykirken.dk, you may be right: It probably should have been. But if it isn’t, I may still be working to recover it, or I may have forgotten to restore it — or have lost it totally.

If so, please let me know.

Thanks for your understanding, and apologies for the inconvenience this may have had!

After a rather short vinter, spring seems to be approaching — at least here in Denmark, where the temperatures approached 14C yesterday. A rather big differenced compared to the very windy -10C I experienced last week in Manhattan, but more in line with the temperatures here in Southern France, where I am right now.

And with spring, flowers start appearing in the our lawn.

One of them is depicted here. Even though macro photographs are probably best done with a macro optics, the one depicted here shows that very sharp results can be done with less dedicated equipment.

This flower is shot with a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 at f/8.0, using a Canon 500D achromatic diopter mounted in front. The disadvantage is of course that you can only focus on things 30-50cm in front of the lens, and there are some slight traces of chromatic aberation present if you look really hard.

But it allows you to work at full aperture, f/2.8, so autofocus works really well. Even vibration reduction (VR) works surprisingly well. And the zoom allows you to quickly frame the shot and vary the reproduction ratio all the way down to 1:1.6, which at least partly compensates for the limited focusing abilities. Here, I had the D200 in AF-C mode using the AF-ON button to maintain the focus, compensating for the lack of VR in this 3rd direction.

Oh, and the working distance is of course excellent, compared to what is usually achieved with e.g. a 60mm macro lens or even a 90-105mm macro lens.

So all in all, for an occasional macro photographer it allows for sharp pictures in a pinch, with an easily portable solution. If you anyway can fit the 70-200mm into your bag, there surely also is room for the screw-in 500D two-lens “filter” type diopter.

The full sized picture is here, if you want to see things at 1:1.

Using a shallow DOF can create an interesting effect, as it attracts attention to the parts in focus.

I have often used this effect, shooting at f/2.8 or f/4 with my 85mm f/1.8, but I decided to try out an even more extreme version: shooting wide open on my 50mm f/1.4. The 50mm f/1.8 isn’t that interesting wide open as the drop in contrast is rather pronounced, and it needs to be stopped down a little to be sharp enough for most use. And at f/2.8 it really isn’t any sharper than the 17-55mm f/2.8 wide open.

The 50mm f/1.4, however, is a slightly different story, since it doesn’t loose exactly the same amount of contrast (even if there is some loss). But it has a somewhat dreamy effect that can be used creatively. And of course, at f/2 it performs better than the 50mm f/1.8, so for these types of shots it performs better than the classic f/1.8 workhorse — although nowhere near the famous 85mm f/1.4, which is not in my posession, though.

Anyway, the shot here is of Anne Dorte, and I guess it shows the classical use of shallow DOF: Eyes sharp in focus, everything else not in focus, and background blurred beyond recognition. Taken indoor with available window light at 200 ISO, handheld. Processed with Capture NX and resized with Photoshop. Click the picture to see a slighly larger version.

Having just arrived back to Europe from a business trip to Tokyo, Japan, it once again striked me how cultural differences has a big impact on our behaviour and perception.

In general, I find Japanese people very friendly and I like travelling in Japan. Usually when going somewhere, I often grab a Latte at the nearest Starbucks (possibly a Venti with an extra shot, making it a quad-shot), and this time was no exception. Entering Starbucks with my collegue, a younger japanese women was about to exit. Being polite, we held the door open for her and waited until she had passed us… much to her surprise! We were apparently terribly wrong in doing so, since we were 1) male and even 2) (European) business-men dressed in tie, for whom you apparently give way if you’re a japanese woman. We were equally surprised of her reaction in turn, of course.

Another noticeable difference was the treatment of smokers. Sure, most places requires people to take a stroll outside to smoke, but the strange thing was that many taxis has a slight “scent” of smoke. Apparently it is permitted to smoke inside a taxi, and most even seem to have a special air-cleaning system installed to cope with the smoke. The thing most striking, though, was that at the time of my travel, the headline news in the US was the fact that Barack Obama is a smoker. And this, according to some, makes him unsuitable as a president! Now, I’m glad I’m not a smoker, but I doubt it really disqualifies anyone from being the next Mr. President…

Anyway, as usual, I’m attaching a picture taken during the trip. This was actually done with my Nokia camera-phone with its 3MPix Carl Zeiss optics, and the panorama of the emperors palace has been quickly stitched in Photomerge (PS CS2). I did have my trusty Nikon D70 with me also, but not when I had the chance to make this shot, taken near the central railway station in Tokyo.

Billeder af Familien Johannsen til Domino m.m. ligger her

Jeg har sorteret dem i hvad jeg synes er “de bedste“, og så “resten“. Som sædvanligt er en del af “resten” nok ikke så brugbare, men kan måske være sjove at se af andre årsager.

Billederne er afbalanceret nogenlunde til den hvidbalance som er brugt, men de 3 flash er en smule forskellige, så der kan være små variationer der måske bør rettes i korrektur.

Der er også enkelte billeder som burde have en hurtig tur med photoshop for enten at fjerne et par løsgående reflekser som er kommet med eller for at retouchere et hjørne af en baggrund som har sneget sig ind i det synlige område.

Alle billeder har behov for sharpening passende til udkørselsformatet.

Portrætbillederne af musikskolens lærere er nu tilgængelige online, og kan findes ved at klikke her. De ligger både usorteret og i et sæt med ét billede af hver, som jeg synes er det bedste. Hvis nogle af jer ikke er enige, så send mig blot en mail (se nedenfor).

Bemærk at man kan se billederne som et “slideshow” ved at klikke på knappen i øverste højre hjørne — men det er også muligt at bladre frem og tilbage selv med f.eks. pil-tasterne.

Det er muligt at download’e billederne i en mellem opløsning, som er tilstrækkelig til at lave alm 10×15 cm print i god kvalitet.

Hvis nogen har brug for billederne i fuldt format, på rigtigt foto papir eller gerne vil bruge dem i anden sammenhæng, så send en mail til mig (baekgaard at b4net punktum dk — for at undgå spam har jeg ikke skrevet mail adressen rigtigt, så husk at erstatte “at” med et @ og punktum med et .). Evt. kommentarer kan lægges her (klik til højre for titlen).

Og iøvrigt tak for en, som altid, god og hyggelig weekend!

OK, so I decided that sometimes working a bit more on the actual presentation does indeed make a difference.

New Years day was windy, and while visiting my wife’s sister, Bente, I went for a series of quick shots at the beach as the sun was setting, leaving the rest of the family to complete the lunch. With gusts approaching 20 m/s or more, it was indeed a bit difficult to hold on to the camera, not speaking of holding it firmly enough avoid shake. Alas, VR to the rescue (most shots were taken with the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR or the Tokina 12-24mm f/4, which doesn’t need VR)! So I ended up with a string of shots that at first looked a bit boring in the flat light.

This was what prompted me to play around with a flash presentation, even though I have never really liked flash for the reason of not being able to decide the pace of a slideshow myself. After some investigation, I ended up with soundslides, which is a neat little program that does exactly what it’s supposed to, and not more.

So after some careful treatment of the best shots in Lightroom, most notably tweaking the white balance and vibrance, and after a couple of edits and reviews (thanks, Gert!) I ended up with this. Remember to switch on the speakers, and enjoy a short piece of classical music. Hope you like it too?

I’m in the process of moving the photo gallery to another structure, which should be easier for me to maintain.

No more photos will be added to the old gallery; all new photos will be installed in the new gallery only.

The new link is here: All photos or Best Of.

Welcome to Per’s Page!

This page has been around for ages, and mostly has served the purpose as an entry to photos and stuff here on my server.

I’ve now decided to move it under wordpress to make it easier to maintain.

Here are some links to what you can find here:

Bækgaard Family’s trip to New Zealand, 2004-2005

All online pictures, incl. assignments.

Selected pictures (sort “Best Of” Gallery)

Note (this is in Danish): Hvis du er havnet her ved en fejl, og leder efter City Kirkens hjemmeside, så skal du prøve at gå ind her: http://www.citykirken.dk. Hvis det ikke virker, så send en mail til webmaster på citykirken punktum dk, (hvor du skriver snabel-a i stedet for på og sætter et rigtigt punktum).