Hitting the limits of printer color spaces.

I've never been one to be very picky about the colors of my prints. Of course, I like things to print the way I see them on my screen, but I've never been known to throw a fit if the color is a tiny shade off. I don't have my monitor or my printer custom profiled. I've hand calibrated my monitor with a free program called the Monitor Calibration Wizard (http://www.hex2bit.com/). My printer uses the default paper profiles. I haven't gotten worked up about the limitation of different color spaces. I work all my photos in sRGB, and don't really see the point in working in color spaces which cannot even be displayed on my monitor. The only time I change color space is when getting a photo ready to print at Costco.

Well, lately I've been running into a few cases where the colors I've printed weren't very satisfying to me. However, don't go thinking I'm about to start jumping into all of the above mentioned color space hysteria. And certainly don't think this is going to be the time for you to send me an email trying to convert me to working in aRGB or PhotoPro color spaces. Nope...my problem here stems from the inability of printers to handle even the entire sRGB color space.

A few weeks ago, I was working on printing the following photo:



This sunflower was backlit by the sun, giving some very bright and vivid yellow colors. I thought this photo would be perfect for enlargement, so I printed up a 7"x11" print of it and was horrified. Several of the bright yellow spots in the petals came out with a horrid greenish tint. Not something very subtle, either. It was pretty significant and easily noticeable. Well, I realized right away I was printing outside the gamut of my printer (a Canon i960), so I played around with various color correction settings. I was able to at least eliminate most of the greenish tint (it's still there a tiny bit, but you have to look carefully), but in the process I've lost a bit of the vibrance of the yellows. I wasn't entirely happy with the results, so I've set that photo aside to work on others.

Well, just this weekend, I decided there was another flower photo I liked...this one from my trip to Holland, Michigan last year:



This time, I thought that was an excellent photo and would look better even larger...larger than my printer can go. So, I decided to send it out to be printed up at Costco in a 12"x18" size. When I went to convert to the Costco profile just before saving and uploading the file, I ended up with some horrid colors. Thinking there must have been something wrong with my system (I've made some software changes since the last time I printed at Costco), I went ahead and sent in the print anyway. When I picked it up, the colors were just as bad as they were on my screen. Luckily, this photo was well within the range of my i960, and I was able to print it up in a 7"x11" size with little trouble.

Perhaps someday we'll be well off, with pigment based printers that can cover the entire PhotoProRGB colorspace (and monitors that can display all those colors). For now, I'll have to be content with what's available, and be reminded every now and then of the confines of current technology. However, I'll also be reminded (as I was this weekend) of how the confines of technology are always expanding, as is the case when comparing modern inkjet printers to traditional photographic minilabs.
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Multiple exposure on a DSLR - Part 2 - The Merge

Last week, I talked about the process of capturing images with your DSLR for the purpose of merging them into a multiple exposure. If you missed that, you can read part 1 here.

This time I'm going to talk about loading them into Photoshop and merging them together to create a single image. The general concept will apply just as well to other photo editing programs (ex: Paint Shop Pro), but the required steps and terminology may vary a bit.

For the purposes of demonstration, I'm going to work with a few different flower sequences I took recently. Whether or not these sequences make a good multiple exposure is not the issue, so please don't look at the sample I'm providing, say "Ick...why would I want to do that" and then walk away thinking multiple exposures is a waste of your time. The idea is to show you how to do it, and then you figure out the subject matter and camera technique which gives result that you like.


The Source Images

The first thing you need to do is load in your source photographs. For the first demonstration, I'll merge 4 photos. Below is a collage of the 4 images...just a couple of flowers shot with some vertical movement.



Next you need to get all 4 of these photos into one image as separate layers. You'll want to create a new image with the same width and height as the existing image. Then you want the windows to "Tile Horizontally" (on the Window menu) so that you can see all the images at once. Select the move tool (press V on the keyboard). Now, one image at a time, you want to select each window, hold the shift key, click in the center of the window, drag the cursor to the destination window (the empty one you created a moment ago), release the mouse button, then release shift. Repeat this process for each of the other windows. This will copy each image into a new layer in the combined image.

Finally, you just need to figure out which way you want to merge the images together. There are several techniques you can use, but I'll show you 3 that work decently.


Average Blending

Here, the idea is pretty simple...average the pixel values between layers. Since photoshop doesn't have any built in blending to do such a thing, you'll need to do this using layer opacity. Starting from the bottom most layer, you want to calculate each layer's opacity by the following formula:

Opacity = 100 / (1 + [number of layers below this layer])

When you do this, the bottom most layer will be 100% opacity, the next layer 50% opacity, then 33% opacity, and finally the topmost layer will have 25% opacity. This may seem odd, but mathematically, it works out. The top layer contributes 25% of the image, and the remaining 75% is contributed by the lower 3 layers. Of that 75%, the second layer contributes 33%, which gives you 33% of 75% = 25% contribution to the final image, with the other 50% contribution shared between the 3rd and 4th layers. Layer 3 does 50% of 50%, which is again 25%, and the remaining 25% is contributed by the bottom layer (100% of 25% = 25%).

Here is what the result looks like:



I tend to like this method the best. It's not too complex (as long as you can remember the opacity levels: 100%, 50%, 33%, 25%, 20%, 17%, 14%, 12%, 11%, 10%). The colors tend to stay pretty accurate (blending red on red will give you the same shade of red). The results tend to be closest to what I would expect from a traditional multiple exposure.


Underexposed Screening

With this technique, you leave the opacity of each layer at 100%, but instead, you do 2 things. First, you reduce the exposure of each image using the Image->Adjustments->Exposure menu, then you change the blending mode for all layers EXCEPT the bottom layer from Normal to Screen (you do this in the Layers window). The number of stops to reduce the exposure of each image depends on how many images you are blending. When blending 'x' number of images, the exposure needs to be reduced log2(x). If you aren't familiar with calculating logarithms or don't have a scientific calculator handy, here is the amount to reduce exposure for different numbers of images:

2 images => 1 stop
3 images => 1.6 stops
4 images => 2 stops
5 images => 2.3 stops
6 images => 2.6 stops
7 images => 2.8 stops
8 images => 3 stops
9 images => 3.2 stops
10 images => 3.3 stops

Here are the results of blending these 4 images:



This technique can give some interesting results, but I find it tends to wash out the colors a bit, especially on relatively light colors (where they'll quickly wash out to white). One side effect of the colors being washed out is that you colors can change shades. I'll demonstrate both of these problems later in my second example.


Opacity Screening

A third way to blend the images is to combine opacity and screen blending. First, you need to start with a black background, so create a new layer, fill it with black, then choose Layers->New->Background from Layer. Next, set all the image layers to Screen blending. Then set the opacity on each layer to 100%/[number of images]. The resulting image will be a bit faded, so the final step is to select the topmost layer, then select Layers->New Adjustment Layer->Levels, and in the resulting dialog, grab the rightmost of the three markers and drag it to the right edge of the histogram.

Here is the result:



As you can see, this doesn't look a whole lot different than Average Blending. The differences are quite subtle, and you could probably be just as happy substituting one method for the other. My only point in showing this method is to demonstrate another way to achieve blending, to get your creative ideas flowing. If you take this same technique but adjust the opacities and then readjust the Levels layer you can achieve different effects


Example 2 - Blending 9 Images

In this example, I took a series of 9 photographs of some other flowers. In between each shot, I did 2 things. First, I turned the camera very slightly clockwise. Second, I zoomed in a tiny bit more each time. The first photograph was zoomed to about 41mm, and the last shot was about 52mm.

The 9 source images:


...blended with Average Blending:


...with Underexposed Screening


...and with Opacity Screening


Here you can definitely see the problems I was mentioning with the underexposed screening. The image is much more washed out...way too much white. In addition, the rich red color has shifted to a hot pink. Although, in this case, since we are creating something abstract, that might end up being exactly the effect you are looking for. There is definitely no wrong way to do it...it's all about being creative.


Unequal Blending

The above examples all demonstrate equal blending, where all layers have an equal contribution. Another variation would be to adjust the layers (either their exposure or their opacity) to give emphasis to one layer over the others. Or instead of giving emphasis to just one layer, you could give increasing emphasis to each additional layer...sort of like a motion blur trail which is fading out.


There are plenty of different ways you can experiment with multiple exposures. It's really all up to your creativity. Forget about having any rules and just have fun instead. If you play around enough, you are bound to come up with something interesting and unique. Good luck.
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Multiple exposure on a DSLR - Part 1 - The Capture

I'd like to talk a bit about doing multiple exposures on a DSLR. However, it's a bit of a large topic, so I'm going to break it up into 2 parts. Today, I'm going to talk about the capturing of images. In part 2, I'll talk about merging those images to create your multiple exposure.

As Digital SLR cameras have progressed over the years, they are gradually overtaking traditional 35mm film SLR cameras in almost every way. However, one aspect which I am lately missing is the ability to do multiple exposures.

As I mentioned previously, I've been reading the book Fine Art Flower Photography by Tony Sweet. I'm only halfway through, but so far it has been a fantastic read, with plenty of inspiring photos and ideas about how to take flower photographs that really stand out.

When I went to the arboretum last weekend, I figured it would be a great opportunity to try out some of the techniques I read about. Several of my favorite techniques involved using multiple exposures in various ways to create a dreamy, surreal, or abstract look for your photograph. It's been years since I did a multiple exposure...back since the days of 35mm film. But now that I use a digital SLR, I had to stop and think a bit about how the techniques used for creating multiple exposures have changed for digital.

Well, the first and most obvious change....most DSLRs don't have a multiple exposure feature (there are a few...I'll get to that later). There is no way to take multiple captures and have them go to the same image file. That certainly makes doing multiple exposures shots a bit more difficult, doesn't it? Well, no problem, I figured. That's what software is for. I can take multiple shots, load them up into Photoshop, and blend them together. It's the same effect. In fact, it will give me even more flexibility in how I blend the exposures. Great...off to the arboretum I go.

Not so fast there, cowboy! I now realized that this altered process had another implication for multiple exposure technique. When working with film,
each exposure is additive to the final result. If you took 2 properly exposed shots on the same frame, your end result would be 1 stop overexposed.
In order to compensate, you needed to take each shot 1 stop underexposed. Once added together, your end result should be properly exposed (though that can vary, depending on your specific subject matter).

Normally, underexposing a shot is a bad thing because it introduces more noise into your picture. However, when doing multiple exposures on film this wasn't an issue because the noise was generated by the medium (grain and imperfections of the film), not the process. No matter what you did, the level of noise on a given frame on the film never changed. However, with digital, the noise is part of the process of capturing the photo. When merging exposures, each additional exposure also adds additional noise. You can't count on the second exposure to make the scene brighter in relation to the noise. True, merging multiple exposures together will tend to cancel out some of the noise and reduce the overall noise level, but that's true whether each shot is maximally exposed or 3 stops underexposed, so your best bet is to still get as much headroom above the noise as is possible.

So, the trick in doing multiple exposures with digital is not to purposely underexpose the individual shots as we did with film, but rather to make each individual shot maximally exposed. Then, when we go to merge, we will reduce each shot in brightness. This will simultaneously reduce the brightness of the scene AND the noise.

Keeping this in mind, I was now ready to head out for the arboretum. Once there, I picked out a couple of different subjects and decided to try 2 different techniques. For the first one, I simply panned the camera upwards between each shot. The second one was a simple rotation around the center point of the image.

As I was capturing each set of images, I really began to grasp the weakness of doing digital multiple exposure. If you ask almost any photographer what's the best part of shooting in digital, you will probably hear the words "instant feedback". With digital, you get to see your results immediately, and if you made any mistakes, you can identify them, correct them, and try again. Yet when it comes to doing multiple exposures, the current system completely fails to take advantage of that ability. Indeed, I found myself wondering: did I pan enough? too much? rotate enough? too much? I was, if you'll pardon the expression, shooting blind.

Well, when I got home and checked the results, the answer was: Yes I panned too much. Yes, I probably rotated too much (although my result for this one actually worked, it was more drastic than what I was intending). So now I know what I did wrong and I can try again....except that the arboretum is about a 30-40 minute drive from my house. Oh well, I can just try again next time. Well, as it happened, it's one week later and I made it to the arboretum again. I tried the rotation shot and got something closer to what I intended last week. However, with the panning shot, this time I underdid it. Maybe next time...except I don't know when that will be. This kind of makes the learning process a bit slow...just like the days before digital.

So how could a DSLR be designed to do multiple exposures? Well, the simplest way is to let you take individual images that are already stored on the memory card, and merge them after the fact. This would allow you some flexibility to try different combination of exposures to see what looks best. In addition, you can combine non-consecutive photographs (take your first part of the multiple exposure, then shoot a bunch of other photographs, then take the second part later). Of course, the downside is that this takes up a lot of space on your memory card. If you want to take a bunch of 9-shot multiple exposures, you are going to fill up your memory card very quickly.

Another way would be for the camera to have a multiple exposure mode you can turn on. When in this mode, the individual frames would be stored only in the camera buffer, rather than on the memory card. When you are done, the camera can then combine the images and store only the final result on your memory card (thus saving a lot of space on the card). In addition, the camera could do things like let you see the interim result after each shot. If you get 5 or 6 shots into a series of 9 and then see that your more recent shot didn't fit with everything else, you could undo and try again before continuing on.

With either method, it could be possible to allow you to dynamically adjust the weight of each image. If one shot shows too prominantly in the mix, reduce it's exposure by a stop or 2 to make it blend better with the series.

Of course, these are only what could be done in theory. I took a look around to see if any DSLR's actually handled multiple exposures in camera, and if so, how they did it. Well, it turns out a few of them do this. The Nikon D2X and D200, and the Pentax *istD all have multiple exposure support. However, I could find very little info about how they work. Unfortunately, none of the Canon DSLRs so far support these features. Hopefully by the time I'm ready to upgrade Canon will have added this feature to newer models.

That pretty much wraps up the topic of capturing images for a multiple exposure on a DSLR. Next time I'll discuss merging & blending these images together to give you your final result.
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A few shots from the arboretum

I took a trip to the Belle Isle Arboretum this weekend. It was pretty nice being able to take pictures of flowers in the dead of winter (I can't have any plants/flower as home...the cats eat them). It also gave me a chance to experiment with a few items. I got to give a good tryout to my new 22" reflector, which I bought from adorama a few weeks ago. I also got to try out a friend's 180mm Tamron macro lens. Finally, I got to experiment with a few tricks from the book "Fine Art Flower Photography: Creative Techniques And The Art Of Observation".

My favorite shot from the day was one I call Pink. It's kind of an oddity...contrast without contrast. There's no contrast in color, just contrast in focus and luminance. The foreground and background are all the exact same sort of flowers. I used the Tamron 180mm macro from about 2 feet away, and got this single petal at an angle where it was both backlit and positioned in front of the darkest set of petals in the background. This made the petal quite bright pink, surrounded by a dark pink, and then transitioning out into a medium shade of pink through the rest of the shot. However, to reduce the backlight effect a bit and let you see a little more surface detail in the petal, I used the gold surface of my reflector to brighten/warm up the petal's front side.




The next shot, I really liked how the photograph leads your eye along into a W shaped path. Your eye is clearly drawn to the white spike first, then follows out along the bright red, arching leaf. When it reaches the end, you are left following up the red leaf of the out-of-focus plant, which just kind of dissipates and lets you draw back to see the entire photo once again.




The next shot...I'm not exactly what sort of tree this is, but it is very fascinating looking. This shot here looks like a big pair owl eyes.




Finally, for the last shot I took some pretty uninteresting flowers and tried to make an interesting shot via multiple exposure. Trying to replicate multiple exposures via DSLR is a bit of a pain, but I'll save that topic for another time. Inspired by the book mentioned above, I tried a set of 6 rotating exposures. Didn't come out exactly how I would have liked (it's a bit more abstract than I was looking for) but not too bad (in my opinion).




In the next week or so I'll try to post a review of the book (once I finish it), and also provide a little more information about multiple exposures photographs on a DSLR.
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Hama single bubble level

I just got a new little toy the other day from Adorama. It's a VERY simple accessory, but it kind of disappointed me a little, so I felt like sharing my thoughts.

The new item is a Hama single bubble level. The purpose of this item is that you can slip it into the hotshoe of your camera, and then you can determine when your camera is level. Of course, the most common use for this item is to make sure your camera isn't tilted from side to side. This way, you can make sure any horizontal lines are straight.



That's pretty useful, because it can be a bit tricky getting the horizon straight. In such a small viewfinder, what APPEARS to be straight in camera can actually end up being at a pretty drastic slant once you print an enlargement. Another use can be for shots where you aren't looking through the viewfinder. Like maybe the ground is wet, and you see this nice looking puddle shot, and you want to get a wide angle shot from just a couple inches off the ground, but you don't want to lie down and get your clothing soaked. So you just hold your camera down low, and take a blind shot. I've done this a number of times, and almost always I end up with the horizon being crooked (often drastically). A bubble level will solve this problem...just position your camera, tilt until level, and shoot.

So, that's the reason I decided to get one of these levels. My only question was which one to buy. These levels come in 2 basic types...single bubble and double bubble. The double bubble levels have an extra level in a different orientation. This allows you to level your camera in 2 directions at once. For example, not only can you ensure that you are shooting the horizon level, but you can make sure the camera if pointing parallel to the ground, rather than tilting up or down slightly.

Now, in thinking about this usefulness of this, I asked myself when would I ever want to level my camera 2 directions at once? Perhaps it might make sense when shooting a subject from directly above. However, for landscape photos that doesn't make much sense. Having a level horizon is a technical issue, so a technical solution (a level) makes sense. However, the up and down angle is more of an artistic/composition issue. It doesn't generally make sense to apply a technical measure to it.

So I decided that a less expensive single-bubble level was what I wanted and ordered the Hama model from Adorama. When it arrived yesterday, I opened the package, slipped it on the camera, and made an unpleasant discovery. The bubble level has 2 connectors on it (so that you can attach it to the hotshoe 2 different ways). I knew this before ordering. However, what I didn't know was that the second connector was completely useless...it didn't provide the ability to attach it in any different orientation the first connector.

As a result, although you can use the level two different ways when the camera is in landscape orientation, once you turn the camera to portrait orientation, there is no way to level the camera left to right. You can only level the camera in the front/back (tilt up/tilt down) direction. In other words, the level is virtually useless in portrait orientation.

The most annoying aspect of this is that, if the extra connector had been but on the third axis instead, you would be able to use this level in either direction for either orientation. A very simple design change would have made this accessory MUCH more useful.
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Tamrac Expedition 7 Backpack - Part 3

Two weeks ago, I talked about my thought process in deciding on this backpack and a brief overview of it. If you haven't read that entry, read it now:
Tamrac Expedition 7 Backpack - Part 1

Last week I talked loading up the backpack, and my thoughts on it's construction. If you haven't read that entry, read it now:
Tamrac Expedition 7 Backpack - Part 1

On Friday, I had a chance to go out and actually put this backpack to the test, at least for a little bit. I headed down to the park and spent about an hour and a half taking pictures of stuff. While I didn't get to test as thoroughly as I'd have liked, I got a pretty good idea for how it handles.

First off, carrying the backpack around that long was no problem at all. With the 2 shoulder straps and the waist strap, the weight was pretty well distributed. The bag did not feel too top heavy, as I was concerned might be the case. However, since I wasn't hiking (I was just walking around taking picture) I had my camera and an extra lens out at all times, so the backpack wasn't at full weight. Also, for the same reason, I didn't have my tripod attached, so that was even less weight on the backpack.

Removing and getting into the backpack was not bad at all. Not as difficult as I feared. To test quick accessibility, I attached my lens case to the waist belt and put a lens in there. While the case does work well for my 70-300, the Sigma 12-24 was a little too wide. It could just barely fit in there, and as a result, it was a bit difficult getting it out. I need to find a larger case that fits a little better.

Another problem I noted here was that, due to the cold weather, I was wearing a thick, bulky jacket, and as a result it kind of pushed the straps further out. Its kind of hard to describe exactly what I mean, but the end result was that the lens case on the waist belt was a bit further out and behind me, and the memory card/batter wallet was a bit higher up on my shoulder. This made them both a little more difficult to get at...a problem I don't seem to have when not wearing a jacket. The end result is that it makes the bag just a little more difficult to use in the winter (but then again, photography in general is a little more difficult in winter).

All together, I was pretty satisfied with how the backpack handled. However, I think an even bigger test will be using it in the summer, when I'm more likely to be hiking longer distances and thus needing a backpack the most. We'll have to wait a couple months for much nicer weather around here before I can try that out.
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Tamrac Expedition 7 Backpack - Part 2

Last week I talked about my thought process in deciding on this backpack and a brief overview of it. If you haven't read that entry, read it now:
Tamrac Expedition 7 Backpack - Part 1

Today I'm going to talk about loading that backpack up and my thoughts on it's features and construction. As far as actual use, I haven't had a chance to try it yet....I've been sick. However, the last few days I've been feeling better, and as of last night, the only sign left was an occasional series of coughs. So with any luck, I should be able to find some way to put it to the test this weekend. When I do, I'll post part 3 with my thoughts.

On The Inside

The first thing I had to do was find a way to get all my gear into the backpack. I didn't think there would be any problem at all. In fact, my initial thought was that this backpack might be a bit bigger than I needed, and that I'd end up with quite a bit of empty space. I couldn't have been more wrong. I overestimated the size of this bag, but I more severely underestimated the quantity of my equipment. However, I did manage to fit everything in with a bit of room to spare (and I could make more room if needed). First, a look in the main backpack compartment:



On the left, from top to bottom is my Sigma 12-24 lens, Vosonic X-Drive, and my Plamp & McClamp clamps. In the center, at the top is a space for my Digital Rebel, and at the bottom I squeezed in my 2 cases of filters, my Sigma EF-500 DG Super flash and Stofen Omnibounce. On the right, from top to bottom is my Sigma 70-300 APO Super Macro II, Canon 50mm f/1.8 + Kenko extension tube set, misc items (shade for my 30-700 and bulb air blower), and on the bottom is an empty space for future items (like someday a spare camera body).

If prompted for a little more room, I could also clear the misc items from the lower right by putting the shade in the same compartment as the lens and squeezing the blower into one of the top corners (in the unused gaps next to the camera).

As you can see, I've loaded my body and lenses near the top. I figured near the top was better, since I wouldn't have to open the zippers all the way to get at the body and lenses quickly. I'm wondering now if it would be better to have the heavier lenses near the bottom (to keep the weight and center of gravity low). I'll see how that turns out when I actually use it and adjust if necessary.

Next, we'll take a look at the items I squeezed into the main compartment pockets.



The top pocket holds a bunch of misc accessories (an extra filter, some clips & straps, ect). The middle pocket has my PecPads, parts for my Cokin filter kit, and a few extra lens and body caps. In the bottom pocket is my Lumiquest Promax kit and my Better Beamer (both really fold up nice and compact).

On The Outside

First let's take a look at the front of the backpack



On the left side, you can see I've attached the water bottle on the bottom, and there's a place for me to attach a light jacket using the optional cinch strap attachment. On the right side I've attached a lens case on the bottom and a large pouch on top. I've got them there for now, but once I'm out in the field, I'll probably attach them to the waist band so that I can access them more easily.

As far as the shoulder straps, on the left strap (left in the picture...it would be the right strap when I'm wearing it) I've used the clip to attach a mini flashlight/compass, and I've found a place to tuck in my lenspen for easy cleaning. On the other strap I've attached the 4 pocket memory card/battery pouch. Inside I have my 2 extra memory cards and 1 spare battery.

Now, let's turn the backpack around and look at the back:




In the first picture you can see I've attached my tripod (with the one broken leg, which is why it's stuck open). The backpack holds it very secure. Two legs slide into a special reinforced pocket at the bottom while the third leg hangs free. A strap at the top wraps around the head of the tripod to hold the top in place. Then two more straps wrap around the middle of the tripod to make sure it's not going anywhere.

In the second picture, you can see the wing-like accessory pockets opened. On the left I have my mini tripod, a set of spare AA batteries for my flash, and lots of empty pockets for more batteries, memory cards, a cell phone, etc. In the right, I have my cable release, an extra battery for the camera (which you can't even see in the pocket), and several more empty pockets.

There is also a zippered compartment to fit more accessories inside the back panel of the backpack. Right now it's empty, but I could use it to hold a book & notepad, or maybe a collapsible reflector (which I plan on purchasing soon).

Thoughts on Construction

The backpack is build really solidly and seems pretty well thought out. So far, without using it I can't see any weak points, but I will point out a few of it's strong points. First, lets take another look back into the main compartment:



One thing I really like here is the velcro on the dividers. Lots of other bags I've tried only had one or 2 strips of velcro on each divider and on the side of the bag. However, in this backpack Tamrac has put full width patches of velcro lining the entire compartment. This gives you plenty of flexibility with how to attach the dividers, as well as helping ensure that the dividers are attached very securely.

The next feature I really like is the pair of clips to hold the back shut. I've seen backpacks before that have nothing but a zipper holding the backpack shut. There was even a post from someone in the dpreview forums who had their zipper fail, the back fly open, and their entire contents of the backpack (body, lenses, and all) fall right out onto the ground. That can't be pleasant. Well, with this backpack, there is an extra clip-on-strap on each side of the flap (about half way up) to hold it closed, just in case the zipper should fail.

Also,you might be concerned about the fact that the tripod attaches to the back panel. Will the weight of the tripod pull open/break the zippers? The answer is no, because the strap that wraps around the head of the tripod is actually connected to the top of the backpack itself rather than the back panel. This serves 2 purposes. First, it removes the weight from the back panel. Second, should the zipper fail, it kind of acts as a third latching point (in addition to the 2 side clips) to help hold the back panel closed.

Other than that, the backpack has most of the standard features, like waterproof zippers and extra flap that completely covers the main zipper (so you can be sure no rain leaks into the main compartment). The one thing it doesn't have (which many other backpacks do) is a waterproof flap to cover the entire back side. However, when you consider that you attach your tripod to the back, that doesn't make a lot of sense for this backpack. And while we are talking about the tripod and rain, I should point out that the bottom pocket (for the tripod legs) has a drain hole at the bottom so that it doesn't collect water. That's good if you want to use it for a tripod as designed, but if you want to use it as an extra general purpose pocket...well, don't put anything that isn't water/dirt proof in there.


I think that pretty much covers things for now. Stay tuned for part 3, when I actually put this backpack to the test.
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Tamrac Expedition 7 Backpack - Part 1

The most desired item on my Christmas list was a Tamrac Expedition 7 backpack. Luckily, my wife was kind enough to buy it for me.

I've actually been wanting a backpack for quite a while now. As my camera bag reaches the 15 lbs mark, it has started to become a bit of a burden to support on one shoulder. Carrying it on a couple of the 1 mile (each way) hikes I've gone on has been very difficult. I found myself repeatedly shifting the bag to different positions just to stay comfortable: Right shoulder, left shoulder, right hand, left hand, cradle it with both arms, etc. There have been a few hikes that I just didn't have the motivation to go on, simply because I knew how painfully far I'd have to carry that bag.

For this reason, I've been thinking about shifting to a backpack for about 8 months now. I almost hurried and bought a backpack before my trip to Seattle last May, but decided I didn't want to rush into it...I wanted to think about it some more. After all, a backpack isn't a godsend. It does have one major downside, which is the lack of accessibility to equipment. Every time you want to get out a new piece of equipment, you need to take the backpack off, open it, get what it is you want, close up the backpack (can't just leave it unzipped like a shoulder bag), and put it back on. A major pain.

So, afraid that I wouldn't like the decreased accessibility, I put off purchasing a backpack. However, every single time I had to carry that heavy bag on my shoulder, I though a little bit more about getting a backpack. With Christmas coming up, and my choice of tripod undecided, I figured this would be the perfect time to ask for one.

So why did I choose the Tamrac Expedition 7? After comparing backpacks from many different vendors, the Tamrac Expedition series seemed to have the most features and also, even more importantly, seemed to do the most to minimize the accessibility downside of using a backpack. I'll explain this in a minute. Looking at the Expedition series, only the 7 and 8 models seemed to have enough room for the equipment I wanted to carry, and only the 7 and 8 had the extra waist strap to help spread the weight of the pack across your body.

Comparing the two models, the 8 seemed a bit large for my body (I'm not a very larger person...about 5'7" and 160 lbs), and it seemed like it had WAY more room than I needed (though now that I've loaded up my 7, I can see how the 8 would have been a good idea). So, I settled on the Tamrac Expedition 7 as my pick.

So back to the accessibility issue. Well, the thing I liked best about this backpack was that it had the most room and most convenient arrangement for expansion. It has all sorts of places where you can connect on an extra lens case or a pouch. There are 4 on the side, and 2 on the shoulder straps. In addition, although not an official attachment slot, there are 4 places on the waist belt which could be used to hold expansions...2 would work well for carrying lenses, and 2 are perfect for my filter pouches.

So which accessories did I decide on? First, I got a large pouch, which is the perfect size for holding my Sigma flash unit. Next, I got a large lens case so that I can get access to switch off a lens easily (though now I wish I had asked for 2). When out hiking, you are bound to get thirsty, and I'd hate to carry a water bottle separately, so I got the water bottle attachment. I also got a 4-slot memory card/battery pouch that attaches to the shoulder strap. This way I can swap out the items which I change almost as often as my lenses. Finally, I got a pair of cinch straps, which are just for generic use, however I decide to use them...like maybe attaching a light rainjacket/windbreaker to the side of the backpack.

So that gives you an introduction to the backpack...why I wanted one, what I thought about, how I decided on what I wanted, and what I ended up getting. The post is getting a bit long at this point, so next time I'll post more details on the backpack now that I have it in my hands...my thoughts on construction and features, how I loaded it up, and what I think I'd like to add. I'll post some pictures of it. However, being that I'm sick right now (see yesterdays post) and stuck in the house, I'll have to leave my thoughts on actually using this backpack until a future part 3.

Update: Tamrac Expedition 7 Backpack - Part 2
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A Merry Christmas and an Unhappy New Year

Santa was pretty good to me in the photography department this year. I put together a list of equipment I wanted for Christmas, and I got a good portion of it. I'll talk about the various pieces of equipment individually over the coming days, but here's a quick summary of what I got:

Tamrac Expedition 7 backpack
5 accessory attachments for the backpack:
      lens case
      accessory pouch
      water bottle & pouch
      4 pocket memory card/battery pouch
      two cinch straps
Plamp + 1 foot extension
McClamp
Better Beamer
Lumiquest Promax System (80-20 + 3 reflectors + diffuser)

The item I really wanted most was a new tripod and a ballhead. However I couldn't decide on exactly which one I wanted (and I'm still trying to figure it out) so that got left off of my list. Unfortunately, when trying out some of my gifts the day after Christmas, one of the locking levers on the leg of my current tripod snapped off. At least it's stuck in the leg expanded position, so I can still make use of the tripod...I just can't close that one leg all the way. But it's kind of pressing the issue now, so I have to figure out pretty soon which equipment I really do want so I can order it.

So, gifts from Santa was the Merry part of Christmas, but (despite how it might sound) the broken tripod is NOT the unhappy part about the new year. No...the unhappy part is that, despite the fact that I have the entire week off from work, I can't go out hiking with my backpack, or trying out my better beamer on the winter birds. And why not? I'm SICK!!!!!

I came down with a cold the other day. Not much of a big deal...I deal with colds all the time and don't let them concern me much. However, the first day I went out to the grocery store, and later that night I came down with a fever. Now I have a bit of a cough and little bit of a sore throat. It's probably best if I don't go hiking through the winter weather right now, so I'm confining myself to the indoors. Maybe I'll find myself some abstract macro subjects around the house to take pictures of...make use of the Promax and the clamps.
...click here to read more!

Grid wall instruction

UPDATE (June 21, 2006): I've made a few changes to the design, making on site assembly (at the art show) easier and probably even lowering the total cost by $20 or so. Read through this posting first, then take a look at the changes I made here

I promised back in September that I'd get these instructions up in the next couple days. So much for that, but better late than never, so here we go. But before I get into the details, just to clarify for those unfamiliar: 5" = 5 inches, 5' = 5 feet. Don't mix them up

Cut your conduit

First thing we need to do is cut up the conduit. We'll need 22 pieces of 10' long, 1/2" electrical conduit. Take 18 pieces of conduit and cut them all the same: Cut off a 5' 6" section (66"), a 3' 1/8" section (36 1/8"), and your remainder should be about 17 5/8". Next, take 3 more pieces of conduit and cut each one into 4 equal pieces or about 2' 6" (30") each (minus whatever is lost to the sawblade). Finally take the last piece, cut off two 4' 6" sections (54"), and scrap the remaining foot.

In addition, we'll also need 1 piece of 10' long 3/4" electrical conduit, which will be cut into one 5' section and two 2' 6" sections.

Drill and assemble the 9 panel frames

Next, we will need 36 corner braces. I used some heavy duty 3" braces. They are 3" long on each side and have 2 holes approximately 15/16" and 2 9/6" from the corner. If your dimensions are different, you will need to drill some of the holes differently in the next step.

Now we need to prepare the tubes for assembly. Take all 18 of the 66" sections, all 18 of the 36 1/8" sections, all 12 of the 30" sections, but only 6 of the 17 5/8" sections (the other 12 can be set aside for now). First, use a flat file to smooth down the cuts on each end. Now, what we need to do is drill the necessary holes in them according to the diagram below.

There are a few important details. First, it is important that these holes be drilled as accurately as possible. It would be best to use a drill press with a table vice and a production stop. That way you can be sure the corresponding holes get drilled at the same location on all 18 pieces so that they all line up later. Second, you want these holes to be drilled parallel to each other, so that both the entry and exit holes line up. With a drill press, this is no problem when drilling a square piece of stock. However, with a round piece of stock (ie: no flat surface) it's VERY easy to rotate the stock at an angle.

This problem would best be solved with proper machining facilities. However, doing this out of my basement, I had to improvise. The trick I used was to purchase a 6" long 1/4" bolt and small 6 " magnetic level. Assuming your drill press table is level, and your drill bit is perpendicular to the table, you drill your first hole in each piece at any angle. Then for subsequent holes, you place the bolt sticking up through the original hole, stick the level onto the bolt, rotate the piece until it's level (ie: the bolt is pointing perfectly up), clamp it down in the drill press, and drill your hole. After all holes are drilled in each piece, use a round file to clean out the holes and a flat fill to remove any left over burrs.

OK, onto the diagram. Using a 1/4" drill bit, drill holes into each piece of conduit according to the diagram below (click the picture for a full size image).



Now with all the holes drilled, we need to assemble the 9 sections of panel. For each one, we will need two 66" conduits, two 36 1/8" conduits, 4 corner brackets, 16 bolts (1.5" long, 1/4" diameter) and 16 nuts (1/4" diameter"). Connect them together so that they end up like the following picture (note how the excess length of the bolt is on the INSIDE of the frame.



Now that each frame is assembled, you should be left with 4 unused holes on each of long sides. These holes will be used later by the bolts that hold the sections together to form an entire wall. We're not ready for that step yet, but there is one thing you should do at this point. In theory, if you machined all of you pieces identically, then all the holes should line up perfectly. However, in reality there probably are going to be slight differences in the way things line up. To make assembly easier, it would be nice if these holes were opened up slightly to allow some room for error. To do this, I took a hand drill with a 1/4" drill bit, put it in each hole, turned it on, and rocked the drill around to all angles (kind of in a circle). This widens the hole up slighly to allow room for error and to make assembly easier. Then I just filed down the holes again.

Attach grid wire to each panel frame

Once you have that done for all 9 sections, then we need to apply the grid wire. Get a 50' roll of 36" wide grid wire (the holes in the grid should be 2"x4"). If you cut this VERY carefully, you should be able to get all your cuts out of 1 roll (with about 6 inches to spare). You want to cut off 9 section that are 64" long. However, no matter how you cut the wire, either the piece you are currently cutting or the next piece will have some nubs sticking out at the end. What you really want to do is cut the wire just before the 66" mark. The extra 2" nubs will be on the piece you just cut off. Then you can trim them off the current piece you that you have a 64" piece of grid. The diagram below should make this more clear. It depicts the nubs on the right side. After you trim off the 2" nubs, the right side and left side would look the same.



Now you want to take each section of grid wire, grind off any sharp ends from your cuts, set them in place in each of the 9 frames, then use a couple dozen 7 inch zip ties to secure the grid wire in place. When you attach the zip ties, it's a good idea if you space them out evenly, and its also helpful if you attach them at the same locations on each panel. After attaching all of the zip ties and pulling them all tight, you can now use wire cutters to trim off the excess.

Assemble 9 panels into 3 walls (3 panels each)

Now you should have 9 panels built. Next step is to assemble each of the 3 walls (and you will need to do this each time you set up your display). Take 3 of your panels and lay them on the ground. Take two 17 5/8" pieces and place them between each pair of panels at the top edge, so that about 1" of tubing will stick out over the top of the panels once they are assembled. Now take 4 of the 30" pieces, and place these at the bottom so that they stick out about 16" to form the legs, one on the left end, one on the right end, and 1 between each pair of panels. Now we need to bolt them on. To do so, use 1/4" bolts and nuts. Use a pair of 2" length bolts to attach each of the 2 legs on the ends. Then use a pair of 2.5" length bolt on each of the middle legs and each of the upper arms.

One note before bolting these down. You may notice that the heads of some of the other bolt on the 3 panels will be sticking out, getting in the way of each of these tubes you try to bolt on. My solution was to take a pair of 1/4" hex nuts, tape them to the jaws of a vice so that they line up (one on each jaw), mark each piece of tubing where a bolt will be in the way, place the tube in the vice so that the taped hex nuts line up with the marks, then tighten the vice to indent there areas. You can kind of see how this looks in the top picture above. I also found that the straps from the zip ties also got in the way a little. To deal with this, I just place that section of the tube in the vice (without the hex nuts...using the bare jaws) and tightened it down to indent it JUST A LITTLE BIT. Don't overdo it. Once you have this done for all the pieces, go back and assemble them with the bolts as indicated above. Repeat assembly instructions for each of the other 2 wall.

Attach the walls to your canopy frame

If you followed instructions correctly, you should now have a full wall, approximately 9.5' wide (I never measured it exactly). This should fit perfectly between the legs of an EZ-Up canopy. Take each of the 3 walls, stand them up between the canopy legs, then zip tie them to the legs using some heavy duty zip ties. I initally took 2 of my 7" zip ties, connected them together to form a longer one, and used this. However, I have since purches some heavier duty 11" ties instead. Whatever you decide, you will want to use 4 ties on each wall (one at the top and bottom of each end).

Assemble crossbar supports

Your display should now be pretty sturdy. It could probably stand on it's own this way just fine. However, I wanted to be a little more careful, and add a little more support. And that's what the little 1" nubs sticking out at the top of each wall are for. I built some cross supports. I put one long support going from the left wall to the right wall, and the a shorter support going diagonally from each of the side walls to the back wall. When all 3 are attached, you get a sort of triangle shape, but with the points of the triangle flattened off . You can see these supports in the photo below.



To consturct the longer support, take the 5' section of the 3/4" conduit, and slide one of the 54" section of 1/2" conduit into each end. You will need to find a way to bold these pipes together tightly. The easiest way I found was to use soome litle threaded inserts...the kind used to add metal thread holes into a wooden object. I used ones that are threaded to accept 1/4" bolts. I then drill a hole in each end of the 3/4" conduit big enough for the insert to poke through, then placed the insert through the hole from the INSIDE of the conduit sticking out. The problem here was, because of the shape of the threaded insert, there was no longer enough clearance inside the conduit for the 1/2" conduit to fit. To fix this, I had to file off a lot of the insert to make it fit better. It's really difficult to explain this in words, so the pictures below should make this clearer.


unmodified threaded insert


threaded insert, filed down


threaded insert installed in cross bar



Instead of doing all of this, you could just use a single long piece of 1/2" conduit for the support. However, you then have to make sure to cut it at the exact length, and you need to fit this nearly 10 foot long piece of conduit into your vehicle. With the design I used, the length is adjustable, and it disassembled to a much more manageable length.

Now you need to repeat this process for each of the smaller supports. For each one, use one of your 2' 6" sections of 3/4" conduit along with two of your remaining 17 5/8". Repeat the process of drilling holes and inserting the threads.

Finally, you will need to attach each of these sections to the walls. You'll need to use six L-connectors for 1/2" electical conduit, as shown in the image below.


Loosen the bolts on the support bracket, attched on of these L-connectors to each end, tighten down the screw on each connector, puth the entire support in place, tighten it down on the wall section, then tighten the bolts on the support.

Enjoy your grid walls

This is certainly no easy task to get these all assembled, but if you made it this far...congratulations.
...click here to read more!