Football season in full swing!

OK, snap here with a new post...finally! I took a break for a while and honestly hadn't come across much worth diggin' out the antique digital cameras for. Now that we are in football season, I thought I'd make a few images at a nice day game in Trumbull yesterday. St. Joseph faced New Canaan. St. Joe's held on to beat them 28-27. These images were made using the Kodak nc2000e, an amazing digital camera in its day. It's neat to be able to still squeeze a decent digital image from it all these years later! The first image in this group is also a part of the Stamford Advocate online slide show from this game:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/football/article/Matakevich-returns-St-Joseph-holds-off-New-720596.php

Cool!

'Ol Edwardsville

Here's a few shots I made on a walk while visiting family in Pennsylvania. The gas pump, fan, and trailer were made with the Nikon nc2000e and the house with the grill on the porch was made with the Nikon D50.

RBS Building comparison

Recently, the sun was setting on the RBS building next to where I work in downtown Bridgeport, Conn.. I thought the scene was very beautiful. So, I decided to snap a few frames of the building, each one a different camera.



The first, above, is from a 3MP Fuji 6800z point-and-shoot I got for 30 dollars on Ebay. (Isn't Ebay great. LOL!) The resolution is interpolated in-camera up to 6MP. It's still a pretty quick and responsive camera for how old it is.



The second, middle, shot was made with a Kodak DCS-330 3MP Professional camera that I'm borrowing from a friend to play with. It's one of the first Kodak pro bodies to use a preview monitor in back. I believe the first was the DCS-315. Not 100% sure though. This image was the most saturated and contrasty of all the cameras.




The third, bottom, was made with the Kodak nc2000e that I've been using for a while now. It has been interpolated up to 3MP through Photoshop's RAW converter which opens the tiff file. What's also interesting is the crop factor. On the nc2000e, the 16mm fisheye lens used, clearly giving the widest view, with a 1.5X crop factor. That makes the 16mm a 24mm lens on the nc2000e. On the DCS-330 however, there is a 1.9 crop factor. That makes my 16mm a 30mm. On the Fuji, the widest end is a paltry 39mm. It's 3X zoom goes up to 108mm.

All have been sized to 200 DPI at 10 inches across. All were lightly toned or sharpened in Photoshop. Feel free the files to download to compare.

Out of the camera comparison

Here's another quick Nikon D2h versus nc2000e comparison. These were taken at Shelton High School's Graduation Exercises in Shelton, Conn. on Friday June 18, 2010.

Out of the camera the D2h's colors are drab whereas the nc2000e's colors are vibrant (top photo).

The D2h scores points on a more film-like look when zoomed in on details (bottom photo).

Points for the nc2000e when used in Program Mode and matrix metering. This camera (since it is technically a film camera) still works better when metering various difficult conditions like these graduates who are backlit.

The D2h falls short when using Program Mode. Highlights at any point in the frame cause either massive under or overexposure. Manual is just about the only way to go when light is like this.

Just another day in paradise

Here's a couple of pics from yesterday's assignments. Both were in Bridgeport, Conn.

The first is a portrait of resident Eric Colon who has a problem with the construction company next door to him. On windy days, plumes of dust are sent his way and rats have been a problem too. The city has forced the company to stop work but it's fighting it in court.

The second set is from Bassick High's graduation ceremony at the Klein Memorial Auditorium on Tuesday night.

(Shot with the Kodak nc2000e)

Taming muddled details

So, I've been trying to figure out why there was so many "jaggies" at the edges of details in photos from the nc2000e as compared to the more natural look of details from later cameras like the D2h, which I use on a daily basis. At first, I just chalked it up to the camera just being such old technology, but some photos I've shot depicting natural things like flowers didn't have that problem, so I had to re-evaluate what might have been causing it.

One of the thing I've discovered is that after opening the Kodak .tiff in Photoshop Raw module, there are default settings in place for some sharpening to be done right off the bat. If these are not changed, any additional sharpening of the photo later will result in a piling on of pixels which makes detail get blotchy in spots around any given photo, but mainly where a light and dark contrast appear, say black against a white, or where there are many details that come together, like shingles on a roof.

After pondering this for a bit, I tried a couple of things that, I think, have improved photos a bit.

(Feel free to download the full resolution photos for your own comparison. Especially to see the 300% cropped pics. They have to be opened in PS to see the details clearly.)







The photo at top is brought in from Photoshop Raw and left at it's default settings which were: Sharpening is 25, Radius is 1.0, and Detail is 25) Notice the 300% blow-up of details in the label and you can see the muddled look, and that is without extra processing as a jpeg later. The second 300% photo show Unsharp Mask added later, causing even more artifacts and "jaggies" to appear.

The second full-size photo is the same scene but with all Raw settings brought back to zero. After it was opened in Photoshop from Raw I then applied Unsharp Mask at the following settings: Amount - 100%, Radius - 2.5 pixels, and Threshold - 10 levels. (What's interesting here, is that for years I'd use sharpening at lower levels. The radius would never be set higher than 0.7 and the Threshold was never more than 6. Making the amounts higher here have helped.)

Notice the 300% blowup of that detail and I think you'll agree that this is a better, more natural looking representation of the photo. (Also note that I applied Noise Removal which is built into Photoshop CS4. It does a good job of removing moire and artifacts from photos)

Fairchild Wheeler Golf Course tournament

A post has been overdue, because of a very hectic week at work. Graduations are upon us and with a diminished staff, the workload has increased. But here are a few "snaps" from a recent FCIAC Championship golf tournament at Fairchild Wheeler Golf Course in Fairfield, Conn. on Thursday June 3, 2010. (Shot with the Kodak nc2000e)

Gaussian Blur filter

This post is to show a 100% blowup of a detail in a photo from the nc2000e. When zoomed in at 100% or more, jaggies at the curved edges show up in the photo. After studying the problem, I've found that a .2 or .3 radius adjustment in the blur filter gaussian blur smooths out the jagged edges without affecting the sharpness of the image too much.

The first photo (top) shows the full image with no crop. The second zoomed in image (middle) shows the detail before applying any filter. The third image (bottom) shows the detail with gaussian blur filter applied.

It would be best to download the photos to your own computer and then open them in Photoshop to see the differences. The top photo is the original unaltered image and can be downloaded to do your own tests. Also note that using Photoshop's RAW converter, I set the image to open at its original 1.3MP size. No interpolation was used. The differences would probably be more pronounced if other sizes were applied. It does let you choose between 1.3, 3.4, or 5.2MP. I usually set it to 3.4.

Nikon D2h and Kodak nc20000e comparison

Here's a side by side comparison between the D2h and the nc2000e cameras. Both images were downsized to 72 DPI at 9 inches across. The bottom image is from the D2h while the top image is from the nc2000e. I used a 70-200 VR zoom lens with the D2h and a manual focus 180mm f 2.8 Nikon lens with the nc2000e.



Trumbull's #7 Alexandra Puglisi releases a pitch during FCIAC semi-final softball action against St. Joseph at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. on Tuesday May 25, 2010. The team held off St. Joseph to win 1-0. Photo: Christian Abraham/Connecticut Post

Staples Lacrosse 05-22-10

A bit of FCIAC lacrosse action from Saturday May 22, 2010 in Westport, Conn. St. Joseph High School went on to defeat the Staples Wreckers 10-7. Staples was undefeated in its season until this game. (Shot with the Kodak nc2000e)

Five column spread

Well imagine my surprise when I saw this edition of the paper. I edited 20 photos from the recent excursion to Charles Island in Milford, Conn. (Only 2 or 3 of the 20 submitted were shot with the Kodak nc2000e) and the photo that was used as main art was one taken with the nc2000e. Not only was it published, but it ran a full five columns! I couldn't believe it. But here's the proof that it doesn't matter what the camera is, but that it's just a tool used by the photographer.

Flowers in bloom

I love to shoot the backyard for some reason. It's neat to see the transformation of the seasons and keep a photo journal of sorts. Here are some photos of the flowers that my wife planted or placed in pots around the yard. Also, our dog Cooper was in the yard chillin out. All photos were shot with the Canon DCS-3, an ancient Kodak digital camera from 1995. A few more shots not posted are at my Flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikonman24/

Fresh Fest in Bridgeport, Conn.

Here are some high ISO pics from the Kodak nc2000e taken at the Fresh Fest Old School Reunion concert at the Arena at Harbor Yard in downtown Bridgeport, Conn. on Saturday May 15, 2010. I bumped the ISO to 1250 and 1600 and opened the raw tiffs in Adobe Bridge with CS4 RAW.

Interestingly, they all seemed about two stops underexposed, even though I was using the correct shutter speed and aperture based on the reading I was getting from the D3s and D2h I also was using.

I've also opened the same set of tiffs using the original software intended for the camera, an early version of Photo Mechanic called AP Viewer. It also has a plug-in for Photoshop which allows for the removal of moire pattern common in the old Kodak camera, due to the lack of an anti-aliasing filter. On a side note, a trial version of Band Aide (noise removal tool) was also part of the software, but I need a key to continue its use. (Any suggestions?) Anyway, the photos that looked two stops under in CS4 now look completely normal and right on in exposure. I can batch process the photos to jpeg but loose the ability to interpolate the images to 3.2 MP like you can in CS4 RAW.

So, it's a bit of give and take. I can get the better resolution but have to really dig deep into Photoshop to get the underexposed images to come back to normal, or I can have a well exposed image up front, but lack the higher resolution if I needed a photo for printing. Ah, the dilemma!

More photos from the concert are at my Flickr page here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikonman24/sets/72157623957197542/

The Egg at UB

Arnold Bernhard Arts and Humanities Center, University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. (Shot with the Kodak nc2000e digital camera.

http://www1bpt.bridgeport.edu/about/history/paper_11.html