Moon over Inland Empire Desert

The Catskill Cats

I was in Catskill NY today to visit my friend Jason and help him divest years of photo garbage before he moves to Iowa. There was an art installation and I only had a few minutes in the morning and the afternoon to shoot the cats. Click here to go to the gallery of all my images from that day in Catskill.

Tiffen Dfx Filter System

It’s the instantly accessible digital equivalent of a case of glass filters

—and a lot more!

While I’ve left behind the world of mixing toxic chemicals and blindly clawing at the darkroom doorknob with stained fingertips, I’m spending the same amount of time processing images. After shooting tens of thousands of digital photos I’ve come to the sad conclusion that when a file leaves the camera it must still be processed. Each frame virtually cries out to be sharpened, corrected, burned or dodged to name a few of the required repairs, corrections or enhancements.

All that processing meant that I had to become a master of Adobe Photoshop, which wasn’t easy and, I’ll admit, I’m still not there. That doesn’t upset me because I’ll bet that even in the hallowed halls of Adobe few people are true masters of the program. The reason is the myriad options that the Adobe artifice offers and where in the program they’re hidden. I’d look at an image and wonder to myself, “What is the correct correction? Occasionally, if a colleague was around, I’d ask for an opinion, “What should I do, what would you do?” The best advice I’d ever received was to “…just play with it until you get what you like.”

Yeah right! After forty years making photographs (and still learning something new with each image) I had hoped that the digital age could offer me something a bit more substantial in the clue department.

That was until I was introduced to the Tiffen Dfx program. Like the fresh air and daylight that wafts around the darkroom door when you push it open the Tiffen Dfx program awakens the senses and enhances creativity.

As with most programs, when I first began using Dfx I expected to spend hours playing “Dungeons and Dragons” with the menus trying to find the route to the necessary command (while somewhere in cyberspace a software engineer was laughing at me). I was relieved to find that this was not the case.

Starting with the drop down menus and on to the most sophisticated parameter adjustments the Tiffen Dfx program follows an intuitive pattern and the documentation offers simple explanations of each effect.

The drop-down menus offer File, Edit, Image, View and Help which all do exactly as the names imply. The View quickly became my favorite because it changed window arrangement to suit the task I was involved in. Even better, one click and I was back at the default arrangement!

Speaking of the windows, there are four in the program: Effects, Presets/Parameters, Filters and the main image window. The Filters window runs along the bottom and offers the type and style of filtration. Click on the header and the options appear below, click on a style and the presets appear on the right. On the left is the effects window, which gives you a constant before and after comparison.

Most of the filtration offered in the Dfx system is will seem pretty standard to most still photographers, like graduated neutral density for darkening skies or foregrounds and color correction but it doesn’t end there. Tiffen has included a gamut of gels that would make a theatrical or motion picture lighting director swoon and grips grab their union cards. These virtual effects carry the same trademarked brand names as their actual cousins. While similar color correction can be applied with Photoshop, Tiffen offers presets that you can experiment with a mouse click or two, all the time viewing both versions in the effects window.

Also there are some real gems hidden among these effects. One is in the Light set. Silver and Gold reflectors are a mouse click away and those deep shadows are rescued. Glimmer Glass and Halo makes wrinkles on your Aunt Esmeralda disappear faster than a Botox injection and longer lasting. The Film Lab menu offers choice of film looks that add the mood and texture of analog photography plus some experimental processing looks like bleach bypass, cross processing and flashing. Effects some former wet process photographers may remember and love, now in a predictable and repeatable process. Best of all, I can finally make a true sepia tone image, something I’ve never been able to do in Photoshop.

I found the Faux Film selection to be the Holy Grail that rescues the flat tone line of digital sensors to more of a curve like real film.

If you’re a wedding photographer the Tiffen Dfx is nothing short of magic. With the click of a mouse you can add special lighting effects. Let’s say you’ve got that killer shot of the couple coming down the isle. Your lighting is good, perhaps even excellent, run it through the Dfx program and you can add a gobo that looks like the light is falling from a large bay window (or other sources). Another click of the mouse and you’ve got your choice of ethereal glows.

Dfx also offers the ability to make masks and paths to selectively apply effects. The path and masking tools are accessed with one click and the automatic selection is extraordinary. After creating the mask to can pick the foreground and background with a small slash line-then with a click you can create a new depth-of-field effect.

I found the graduated ND filters my favorite and had to stop myself from applying them to every scenic image I own. The added beauty of Dfx is the ability to drag the effect to the section of the image that needs it. This goes for graduated tone filtration as well.

Color and exposure correction aside another great feature is rotate command. At the click of a mouse you can rotate the image a single degree in either direction. Perfect for aligning horizon lines like horizons or buildings. Add that to the crop tool and I start to wonder why I need Photoshop at all.

Should you need to apply the same effect to large numbers of files there’s batch processing.

Every time I pick up a camera I’m faced with decisions about lighting, composition, filtration and exposure to name a few. Each of these factors proves to be a catalyst for yet another decision to enter the thought process. Sometimes (though hard to admit) I make mistakes or miss some creative option. The accepted wisdom, after a century of cumulative photographic experience, is to shoot the image correctly and the photograph will be fine. These days with the relative ease of computer image processing I’m occasionally tempted to leave problems for “post-production” as the movie people have called it for years. Consciously planning to fix problems in “post” is never a good idea. Which is why I still carry and assortment of lenses, optical filters, lighting gear, gels and the like. Yet sometimes I can’t carry the entire DSLR kit, sometimes I’m just wandering off with a high end point-and-shoot in my pocket. While adapters and filters are available for use with point-and-shoot digital cameras, carrying them would negate the advantages of these photo-techno micro marvels. This is where the Tiffen Dfx software becomes a perfect solution.

Simply put Tiffen’s Digital Dfx Filter Suite is the digital equivalent of a case of glass filters, gels, adaptors, cases of custom lighting and grip equipment, and an experienced photo assistant/lighting director to lug them around for you.

To paraphrase some early advice offered to me about image processing, when you get the Tiffen Dfx program installed and open an image, “play with it until you’ve got what you like.” I’ve only touched on a portion of the marvelous effects that Tiffen’s software engineers have culled together and I look forward to further exploration and I encourage all digital photographers to join me. I guarantee it will be fun.

Shutterbug Magazine makes me somewhat famous

My buddy Jason thanked me in his review of the Leica M8 published in Shutterbug magazine and on Shutterbug's website. Here’s the story about the story.

I met Jason Schneider when I was publishing a small enthusiast motorcycle magazine. A friend at one of the motorcycle companies suggested he call me since he lived near my office. Jason had just retired as Editor in Chief of Popular Photography and was looking for outlets to sell his writing. And he’s also a world class motorcycle and scooter enthusiast. In short order we became good friends.

As a photographer; I’m a Leica enthusiast. I’ve owned more modern Leica models than I care to remember and made great photos with all of them. Budget not withstanding I would have an M6 with the 35mm F2 Aspherical over my shoulder at all times but then again my garage needs a new roof. Perhaps the Lotto numbers will favor me so I can splurge for one of those pimped up models that E. Leitz offers. (See Leica a La Carte) I’m thinking green leather and gold metal (or just tar paper for the new roof). This is my curse; I believe that the best camera ever made, the elusive perfect photographic machine is the Leica M6. I also believe that any photographic story can be told with one prime lens.

So when my buddy Jason called to tell me that he’d just grabbed an M8 for review I jumped at the chance to play with it. Little did I know that what Jason really needed was another high end digital for comparison, enter my newly purchased Canon EOS 5D. He also needed some computer imaging help as Jason is slightly Macintosh-challenged.

I’m slowly accepting digital photography, (About as well as a kicking and screaming two-year old being dragged off to bed).  I bought the Canon 5D because I’m doing more commercial photography work where the image is on-demand, also labs are slowly fading into history.  At least the 12 years as a publisher necessitated daily interface with Photoshop so I have the experience with various digital input devices, cameras and software.

I bought my first digital, a Leica Digilux, over a decade ago. Back then it was made by Fuji. Despite breaking under the abuse of the motorcycle season the camera was cost effective from a business standpoint. I was spending about $300/month on film and processing to cover motorcycle events so a few months of no film expense covered the cost of the camera, and eventually each of its replacements.

I really liked the design of that first Leica digital camera for its functionality and image quality but it was only a 3.1 mega pixel unit, small by today's capture standards. However the files were large enough for our newsprint 85 line screen. I broke that first Leica and instead of repairing it Leitz offered me an upgrade which I took. Since then I’ve owned a half-dozen different digital models by various manufacturers, from a two by three inch Sony 3-mega pixel that hung from a lanyard (to this day my one of my favorite cameras) to a Nikon D100.

So Jason and I met here in Nyack then again up in Catskill to play with the M8 and make some photos.

I had immediate disdain for the M8 when I picked it up. "This is not a Leica," I said to myself. The body is too boxy, too thick. It looks stubby. The camera lacks, for want of another word, the sexy-ness of the M class cameras. Yeah the weight is there, yeah it opens on the bottom, blah-blah-blah, we are NOT impressed.

And I don’t buy the smaller sensor routine. All the years spent squirreling away some coins to eventually buy an E. Leitz super wide lens only to have it become less than normal when mounted on a digital body? That is provided you have the lens mount upgraded so the M8’s computer can read which lens it’s wearing. Sorry Leica that’s rude. Either redesign the entire system from scratch as Canon did or enable all your users to access the technology like Nikon did.

Am I alone in decrying the step back in physical technologies that the step forward to digital has brought? Years of advances in lens design and manufacturing are being scrapped because aberrations can be corrected in the software. Dust management has become tantamount to containing a pandemic with images suffering on the wayside.

Gimme an M6 with a 35mm F2 Summicron and then I’ll drum scan the best negatives…for now.