I just had a very scary firmware update experience… I downloaded the new 1.1.2 firmware from canon, loaded it on a CF card and went about upgrading my new 5D MK III as I did many time before with my previous 5Ds. The camera froze completely, no display, no signs of life. removing battery and replacing (I know, desperate move) did not restore any functions.

For a moment, I panicked a little!

It turns out that I had a Eye-Fi card in the SD slot. I removed the SD card and the camera immediately came back to life, but was locked in a ‘Loading’ status, and unresponsive to the power switch or any other controls. I removed the battery again (I figure I am toast anyway), replaced the battery and the camera booted up normally… Deep sigh of relief!!!

I repeated the update procedure with the CF card alone (nothing in the SD slot) and all went as expected.

I do not know if this is a problem exclusive to eye-fi or an issue of having 2 memory cards installed, but it is definitely a bug and a scary one! If you are planning to update the firmware in your camera, I strongly suggest having only one card installed! Note that the instructions from Canon say you can use either a CF or SD card, but do not mention any issues having 2 cards in the camera while updating.

I will send this same message to Canon to make sure that they can warn their customers!

—UPDATE—

From discussions on the internet, it appears that this issue might be limited to the combination of CF + Eye-Fi in the SD slot. People using two memory cards (non Eye-Fi) report no issues doing the firmware upgrade. I have notified Canon and await their response, will post further updates as I get more information.

–Stefano

Posted from Lowell, Michigan, United States.

Note: this is the fourth part of a multi-part post. Click here for the first post in this series.

We are now ready to read the charts created by targen, the final step before the actual generation of the printer profile! Here the process varies slightly based on the spectro being used. We use a Color Munki, so our examples will be specific to that, but the man page for chartread is pretty explanative.

On a Mac, due to the manner in which the X-Rite software drivers are installed, there are a couple of steps necessary for chartread to be able to connect to the Munki. The first step consists in turning off the ColorMunki daemon, so that it won’t grab the port to which the spectro is connected. This is easily achieved by opening the System Preferences dialog from the Apple menu and selecting the “X-Rite Devices” icon in the “Other” pane. You may get a message saying that System Preference needs to close and restart to access X-Rite Devices, go ahead and say OK. You will get a dialog like the one shown below (note: if your ColorMunki is connected it will show serial # and calibration status also).

X-Rite services dialog

The picture shows the daemon in the proper state for chartread. If yours is On, uncheck the box highlighted in blue, and that’s it. Go ahead and close this dialog. If you want to use the ColorMunki software again, make sure to visit this dialog and turn the Daemon on, or you’ll be unable to connect to the spectro.

The other catch in using the ColorMunki with chartread is the need to execute the chartread command as root, due to the permissions on the ColorMunki driver. This could be changed (a quick Google search will get you the instructions to do so), but I never bothered to. Instead, I use the sudo command to execute the chartread program with root privileges.

This is the syntax for launching chartread suing sudo:

sudo chartread -v -H -B -T0.4 printer_paper_target_name

When you issue the above command in the terminal window, the computer will ask for the administrator password, and will proceed to execute the command after ‘sudo’ with root privileges. Note that sudo retains the password for five minutes, so if you reissue another sudo command within five minutes you will not be asked for your administrator password again. Sudo is a powerful command, make sure to use it only when you know exactly what you are attempting to do!

Here are the options for chartread that I normally use:

When using high density targets for the ColorMunki alignment is very important. I use a Logan Adapt-a-Rule (any sturdy ruler will do) to help me guide the spectro during each swipe.

The picture below shows the proper alignment of the ruler and the ColorMunki on one of my high density targets chart.

The ColorMunki width encompasses almost exactly 3 rows of patches. Here the Munki is positioned to read row F. The guide ruler is aligned with the bottom of the next row of patches (G in this case). Also, note that the mini USB connector is centered over the row being read. This guarantees that the sensor is centered on the target row, and ensures flawless capture each time.

At this point, after undergoing the usual ColorMunki calibration routine, chartread should be prompting you to read the first target row. Position the guide ruler as above, and the center of the Colormunki over the white space between the row label and the first patch. Depress the ColorMunki button and swipe the spectro over the row of patches in a smooth and even stroke. I normally take between two and three seconds to swipe each row. Make sure to apply a smooth pressure, using minimal down force. The ColorMunky has two tiny black rubber pads near the sensor opening, and those tend to catch (especially on glossy paper) and cause a jarring and uneven motion. Mine eventually fell off, and I have not replaced them, but if you want to keep them in place (they are useful when doing spot reads) be sure to be gentle in your swipes!

After each row chartread gives you the option to accept or re-read – If the swipe was successful accept it and move on to the next row. If an error is flagged simply re-read the stripe. After reading all of the charts, chartread will pause for a short time and then write a .ti3 file to your working directory.

Congratulations, you have completed the most tedious phase of profile generation, and you are now ready to create your first custom profile with ArgyllCMS!

Posted from Lowell, Michigan, United States.

Note: this is the third part of a multi-part post. Click here for the first post in this series.

Targen generates a numerical representation of the target, independent of the output device and of the measurement device used. Printtarg is the program that converts the .ti1 target in a series of .tif images ready to print, and an accompanying index file that describe the color value of each patch in the target charts according to their position in the charts. Printtarg optimizes the placement of the individual color patches in the charts to ensure a successful read by the targeted instrument. This is particularly important for ‘swipe’ type colorimeters, which can read a whole chart line at a time. These instruments rely on a significant difference in color between one patch and the next to know the boundary between patches. Printtarg will report in its diagnostic output the minimum ‘DeltaE’, or color difference, between adjacent patches in the target charts. Here a big number is desirable, the exact opposite of the normal use of DeltaE as an indicator of the residual error in a color managed workflow.

Here is our standard syntax for printtarg:

printtarg -v -iCM -h -T360 -p11x17 printer_paper_target_name

For all of the available options to printtarg, see the online man page here.

The .ti2 file includes the data from the .ti1 file with additional information identifying the format of the target (number of patches per row, number of rows, number of charts) as well as the individual expected color data for each patch tagged with the patch coordinates within the target.

Here is an example of a chart (1 of 5) generated with the above printtarg syntax:

You are now ready to print your calibration targets! Make sure that you set your printer driver options in the same way you will be using to print your fine art images with the profile you will generate. Make absolutely sure that neither the printer driver or the application you are using to print are implementing any sort of color management. This is sometime confusing, and downright not possible in Photoshop CS5. To ensure the desired results, the best way we found is to use a purpose built, free utility from Adobe, called Adobe Color Printer Utility. Open each of the .tif files in ACPU, print it to the target printer (again, make sure the driver is set for no color management), sit back and watch your target charts appear! I recommend you print all the charts and let the ink dry and cure for at least 20 minutes before you start the reading process. Inkjet ink is known to drift in color during the first 10 to 20 minutes of drying. If you are profiling specialty substrates, especially high gloss plastic film types, you might want to allow additional drying time to ensure that the colors have stabilized before you measure them. If you are profiling a substrate that requires coating with a liquid laminate (I.e.: fine art canvas) make sure that you apply the laminate to the target charts and let it completely cure before you measure the charts.

After your target charts have had a chance to dry, you are ready to read them with your spectro! Click here for Part 4, where we address chart reading with the ColorMunki..

Posted from Lowell, Michigan, United States.

Note: this is the second part of a multi-part post. Click here for the first post in this series.

Profiling a new paper/printer combination always involves the key step of printing a series of charts consisting of multiple color swatches, and measuring them with either a ‘spot’ or ‘swipe’ instrument. In most commercial profiling software packages the targets are usually predefined, and only a limited selection is available.

In general, the larger the number of patches the better the final results. Also, in general, the larger the set of target supported the more expensive the program.

Argyll CMS has no predefined targets. Instead, it provides a program that can generate any target the user desires, targeted for a wide variety of RGB, CYMK and multi-colorant printing processes and with any user defined number of patches.

This program is, intuitively enough, called ‘targen’, and it is the first step in the process. We suggest starting the process within a new folder named for the paper being profiled, to make it easier to keep track of all the files that will be generated. In the examples to follow we will be using a Mac computer running OS 10.6, but the command line syntax is identical across Mac OS, Linux and Windows.

Here is the syntax of the targen command as we use it in our workflow (note, options are case sensitive, and should be used exactly as shown):

targen -v2 -d2 -G -g128 -e8 -f2264 paper_printer_target_name

And here is an explanation of the options we use (a summary of all options can be quickly reviewed by issuing the targen command with no option, or by reviewing the online documentation).

Targen will set off to work, printing diagnostic messages on the console as it progresses. You will likely see some warnings as targen attempts to generate equidistant color samples and in some cases cannot perfectly space the individual samples, especially when you ask for 2,000 patches or more. Take these as information but they are not critical and can be safely ignored. Once targen concludes, you will find the file paper_printer_target_name.ti1 in the working directory. This is a text file that can be viewed with any text editor (no need to do so, except for personal edification). This is another great feature of Argyll CMS: all the internal data is easily readable and if necessary editable – not so with most proprietary packages!

Congratulations, the first step is done, and you survived the command line! Click here for the next step!

 

Posted from Lowell, Michigan, United States.

Color management is an integral part of the creation of digital art, and it can be the source of much frustration if misunderstood or misapplied. Often color management is thought as a dark art, or as something that requires major investment of money and time to obtain professional results and the technical aspects of it can turn off many a photographer.
There are many decent and affordable solutions for monitor profiling (I.e: Datacolor’s Spyder 3 Elite or X-rite’s ColorMunki Photo), but the story is different for printer profiling solutions.

Until recently the investment in hardware and software for a complete and effective pro level color management solution was definitely on the north side of 1,000 dollars, and the licensing for pro grade software was somewhat arcane and restrictive. The combination of the above is usually sufficient to discourage most people from jumping in with both feet. Some people try to ignore the issue, and become frustrated at the inconsistency of their results. Others obtain entry level (2-500 dollar) calibration instruments for their workflow, and spend a lot of time fighting with the ‘simplified’ (aka crippled) software to obtain smooth profiles, ending up in wasting a lot of paper and time in exchange for uncertain results.

It does not have to be so anymore!

Today, thanks to the efforts of a very talented open source programmer, there is a solution that operates with inexpensive instruments and produces extremely professional results. The Argyll CMS (Color Management System), written by Graeme Gill, is possibly the most sophisticated, and surely the mostly customizable CMS available. The great news is that it is free and works with a great variety of instruments, from the inexpensive to the professional. The other side of the coin is that, at first glance, Argyll CMS can be daunting due to its flexibility and its command line, UNIX style interface. As always, there is no such thing as a free lunch (TANSTAAFL for the acronym nerds and Heinlein aficionados), but with Argyll a small investment of time and reading pays off with wonderful results and a deeper understanding of the color management process.

Argyll CMS is a collection of command line based utilities that can be used to perform most portions of the color management workflow. In this post we will address primarily the generation of a high quality custom paper/printer output profile suitable for fine art photography printing, the area where most ‘affordable’ commercial solutions seem to be most wanting. For our examples, we will use an X-rite ColorMunki Photo spectrometer (note, the ColorMunki Display is a display colorimeter, a different type of instrument not really suitable for paper profiling). The ColorMunki is one of the most affordable spectrometers on the market, yet in combination with Argyll CMS can produce excellent profiles.

The process of creating a custom profile with Argyll CMS consists of four basic steps:

• Creation of a target file (.ti1 file)
• Preparation of the target charts for printing (.ti2 file plus several .tif files)
• Reading of the target chart(s) (.ti3 file)
• Creation of the ICC profile (.icc file)

Each of these steps can be highly configured for the specific needs of the user, and this is where the power (and complexity) of Argyll CMS come into play. To help you navigate the available options, we’ll present the basic ‘recipe’ that we have successfully implemented many times in creating custom profiles for our fine art printers. You are free to reproduce this recipe exactly or use it as a starting point for your own variations, knowing that your efforts will be rewarded with new knowledge and professional quality printer profiles!

This is part one of a multi-part post, click here for the next post in the series.

Posted from Lowell, Michigan, United States.

Datacolor just released a new iPad app called SpyderGallery which allows an iPad to be used as a calibrated image viewing device. This is a great addition to the iPad feature set, as it allows its use as a professional image wallet. In combination with the excellent iPad screen, SpyderGallery is the perfect tool to present image galleries to potential customers knowing that the visual experience of the viewer will be as close as possible to the final print.

SpyderGallery accomplishes this by including a clever feature to profile the Apple iPad display using Datacolor’s Spyder 3 colorimeter and a Mac computer. Datacolor cleverly solved the issue of connecting its colorimeter to the iPad by using a Mac as a calibration server to provide a WiFi connection between the colorimeter and the iPad. Upon downloading and installing the SpyderGallery app, the user is presented with the option to calibrate the viewer. Selecting this option brings up a screen where the user can opt to receive a link to the companion desktop app, which acts as the calibration server. One more download and install step, this time on any Mac computer, and the setup is ready to go! Connect the Spyder 3 to the Mac, press OK on the iPad and follow instructions. In a few minutes SpyderGallery builds a profile for the iPad, and from that point on all images displayed using SpyderGallery will use the profile. Given the quality of the iPad display changes are subtle at times, but especially in the skin tones they make quite a difference.

If you already own a Spyder 3, like I do, this app and its companion desktop server app are completely free and a great addition to the functionality of the Spyder 3, kudos to Datacolor for releasing it! If you don’t own a Spyder 3, this might be a great reason to get one!


Posted from Lowell, Michigan, United States.

Our experiments photographing Whitney’s beads a few weeks ago convinced us to get set up for larger magnifications. Going beyond 1:1 presents a unique set of challenges, and dedicated gear can be extremely helpful in creating repeatable and predictable results. To this end we recently acquired a couple of pieces of equipment to round out our macro kit, and we are very satisfied with the preliminary results we have been getting!

The two new additions to our equipment are a Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Macro and a StackShot motorized macro rail. Here is a quick iPhone picture of the assembled rig, placed near our iMac so that we could control both camera and rail via the excellent Helicon Remote utility.

preliminary testing of our new macro rig

Below the fold we describe the individual pieces of equipment used in assembling the above rig and some tips on how we selected and use the equipment.

First challenge: controlling vibration

High magnification macro requires precise control of the camera position and a vibration free environment during exposure. Ideally one would use a dedicated repro or microscopy stand, but very good results can be obtained with traditional camera support systems and a little care in using them.

We built our rig on the foundation of a set of Manfrotto 055 carbon fiber legs, our everyday camera support. By inverting the column and thus suspending the rig between the legs of the tripod we create a very stable configuration. To counterbalance the camera and rail setup we hung a 4 lb sand bag to the tripod carry strap and dangled that off the back of the table, opposite from the camera/rail assembly.

The next piece is a sturdy ball head. We use our Really Right Stuff BH-55, which for our everyday use is fitted with a long lever release clamp, the RRS B2 LLR II. This combination is rock solid and will support the heaviest camera setups at any angle, while allowing extremely smooth and creep free positioning with its excellent friction control. We planned to install the rail on the B2 LLR II clamp, but we hit a small snag, which Really Right Stuff acknowledges in their literature. In order for the lever release system to work reliably the ARCA SWISS plates used with it need to keep to very tight tolerances. RRS guarantees all their plates to be compatible, but warns that third party rails might not fit.
The StackShot macro rail has an ARCA SWISS dovetail machined in its base, but it is just a tad wider than what the RRS lever release mechanism accepts. We resolved this issue by interposing a RRS PCL-1 panning clamp between the ball head and the rail. The PCL-1 is part of our RRS panoramic Rig, but it is handy in many situations where an additional degree of freedom is needed. In this case it allows the attachment of the rail and provides a way to fine tune the alignment of the camera. The PCL-1 has a screw knob control, which can adjust to a much wider tolerance than the lever release mechanism.
Finally, the StackShot motorized rail is installed on top of the PCL-1 clamp, and the camera is installed on top of the rail stage via a standard ¼” thumb screw and the MP-E 65 lens collar.

The setup is very stiff and preliminary testing shows it to be sufficiently vibration free to support captures at the max magnification of the MP-E 65. The multiple items stacked on the ball head clamp cause a significant lever arm, so the sandbag opposing the camera is necessary to ensure that the assembly won’t tip forward. I will be replacing the rail stage with a lower profile one designed for an ARCA SWISS style clamp, in order to reduce the lever arm slightly and to support a RRS lens plate on the MP-E 65, for consistency with the rest of my support systems. The next step would be to attach a RRS plate to the bottom of the rail, to make it compatible with the lever release clamp.

Second Challenge: Exposure

High magnification macro photography involves significant light losses due to the amount of extension between the lens and the sensor. The MP-E 65 has a nominal maximum aperture of f/2.8, but as the magnification increases the effective aperture increases, according to the formula Ea = Na (M+1), so at 5x magnification, a wide open MP-E 65 has an effective aperture of 2.8 (5 + 1), or f/16. At this magnification and f/stop, the lens has an extremely thin DoF, insufficient for any practical capture.
The normal approach to increase DoF would be to stop down the lens, but a nominal f/8 translates to an effective f/48, and a nominal f/22 becomes f/132! Things fall apart quickly, both in term of exposure times and of diffraction, that at such small effective apertures degrades the image quality of the lens dramatically, turning our expensive macro lens into a plastic Holga lens!

The solution is necessarily a compromise, but this is where the post processing possibilities offered by digital capture really shine, and allow us to achieve results that would have been physically impossible with film.
The key is a 2 prong approach, consisting of intense high speed flash illumination to enable very short effective exposure times at moderate f/stops, and digital focus stacking of multiple captures to achieve a usable DoF.

To provide intense light to our subject, we use a Canon MT-24EX twin macro flash. This unit attaches directly to the front of the MP-E 65 and positions two flash tubes mere inches away from the subject, resulting in very high guide numbers. The two flash heads can be rotated to position them for best subject illumination, and the control head allows to control the ratio of illumination coming from the two heads over a range of +/- 3 f/stops. Normally I would use this unit in E-TTL, but for focus stacking application it is important to ensure very even exposure across all captures, so I use the unit in manual mode, and reduce the power output to 1/16 or 1/32. This still provides plenty of light due to the proximity of the flash tubes to the subject, and at the same time produce a very short pulse of light. The latter is very helpful in further controlling vibration, as the effective exposure time in this configuration is the duration of the flash pulse.

We use a pair of Sto-Fen diffusers on the MT-24EX to soften the flash light a little. At these distance the relatively small heads on the MT-24EX are already several times the size of the subject, and the diffusers further broaden the source, providing soft shadows. The side lighting also helps in making the small subject pop from its background. Our current goal is to photograph small still lives fully encompassing the frame, but for subjects away from a solid background it is important to consider the rate of light fall off. In these cases the background will be very dark, and additional flashes might be necessary to lighten it up.

Third Challenge: Depth of Field

We already mentioned this issue above, and it is definitely the crucial issue in macro photography.
At the magnification afforded by the MP-E 65 DoF is extremely thin, often thinner than a common sheet of paper. As we mentioned above, the traditional approach of stopping down the aperture provide little gain in the DoF, and it is soon overshadowed by the diffraction induced loss of quality, that for a modern high megapixel DSLR starts to be visible at effective f/16.
The above are physical limitations, strictly a function of effective focal length and effective aperture. In the traditional film based photography there was no escaping this fact, and DoF was by far the greatest limitation in high magnification macro photography.
The advent of digital photography and of modern computers makes it possible to automatically ‘stack’, or composite, a series of images of the same subject, taken at very slightly different camera distances, thus creating a composite image using the sharp portions of each ‘slice’.
With proper care in the capture phase, and the proper software, the results of the process are very good, and reward the photographer with beautifully crisp images that would be otherwise impossible.

Focus Stacking: the capture

The key for obtaining a good image is to capture a series of DoF slices that collectively include all the portions of the subject in sharp focus and with uniform exposure. The process is applicable to any kind of photography, not just Macro. It could be used to capture landscapes, or architectural shots with essentially infinite DoF, and it would be rather simple to do so by adjusting the focus manually for each capture in the stack.
For macro photography, and especially beyond 1:1 magnification, the precision necessary to control the focus makes the above approach very hard to control. In addition, at these scales, minute changes of the focus distance produce perceptible changes in magnification, causing each DoF slice to be captured at a different magnification. The more advanced stacking software can attempt to compensate for this, but at the cost of further interpolation, more processing time and likely a slightly softer output.
The only reliable approach, at these scales, is to vary in a controlled way the distance between camera and subject. The approach I have used often, with good success, is to keep the subject fixed and move the camera via a macro focusing rail.
At less then 1:1 magnification our RRS B-150 B Macro Focusing Rail does a great job, and usually allows us to capture our subjects in a few DoF slices.
At higher magnifications the DoF for each individual slice is often a small fraction of a millimeter, and the manual lead screw in the B-150 B is not the best to allow small, repetitive increments in the camera position. The backlash of the lead screw, and worse the fact that each manual manipulation risks to minutely move the camera/rail/tripod assembly, make it difficult and at time frustrating to obtain a good stack in a reasonable amount of time.

A very elegant and effective solution is to use a motorized focusing rail, with a precision stepper motor and a digital controller. The Cognisys StackShot is an excellent example of this type of rail, and makes high magnification focus stacked macro photography a highly repeatable and hassle free process!

This rail is capable of controlling the camera position in increments of 0.01 mm (even less in high precision mode) and the associated controller automates the process of capturing the stack by repeatedly moving the camera and triggering the shutter in precise even intervals. The controller has the ability to manually position the camera, set a start position, a distance increment and a number of captures, or to automatically compute the increment given a start an a stop position, and a desired number of captures for the stack.

As an option the StackShot controller can also interface via USB to a computer, for a fully automated capture and stacking workflow. We use this approach extensively, in conjunction with Helicon Focus and Helicon Remote 2.0 (beta). The combination of StackShot and Helicon Remote automates the process of capturing the stack and provides a tethered, live view, shooting solution with our Canon EOS 5D Mk II. Using the combination of RRS supports and StackShot rail composition is extremely simplified on our 27” iMac monitor. Helicon remote can be set to highlight areas of sharp focus with a ‘peaking’ filter, similar to what is often used in digital movie capture. It has controls for manually moving the rail and storing desired start and stop position for the stack capture, and allows direct control of the camera and flash exposure parameters.

Once the exposure and stack parameters are set, Helicon Remote commands the camera rail to the start position via USB, and initiates a tethered capture of the first frame, via a separate USB connection to the camera. The process repeats as necessary to capture all frames in the stack, including a programmable pause between each capture to allow the motion induced vibrations to settle and the flash to recharge.

Focus Stacking: Processing
Once Helicon Remote is done capturing the stack, it automatically offers the option to open the stack in Helicon Focus. Helicon focus can read Canon .cr2 raw files directly, and will open with a blank preview window and a side bar showing the source images and some processing parameters.
The easiest way to familiarize oneself with helicon focus is to accept the default parameters and press the ‘render’ button, in the top button bar.
Focus stacking is a very computationally and memory consuming operation, and when working with stacks of 30 or 40 21 Mp images you can expect it to take a while. Make sure to max out the memory in your computer, and if possible work on a 64 bit capable machine for the fastest results. On my quad core, 8 Gb MacBook Pro a 30-frame stack can easily take up to 10 minutes to process, but the results are worth the wait!
Given a properly captured stack, with each DoF slice overlapping the other by about 50%, Helicon Focus produces incredibly detailed and rich images. In some cases, especially with very challenging subjects like insects with long protruding antennae, Helicon Focus might need a little help in deciding what portions of the stack to merge in the final image and what portions to discard. For those rare times Helicon Focus provides a full retouching facility for the user to manually paint the proper slice of the stack in the affected areas.

Conclusion

The setup described above is capable of providing state of the art macro captures at high magnification and with exceptional image quality. In the following weeks we plan to exercise this setup on a variety of subjects, and we will post follow on articles demonstrating the process at work.

Posted from Detroit, Michigan, United States.

In the last few weeks we have been exploring the possibilities afforded by macro photography to create unique abstract images. It all started during one of the many product photography sessions of Whitney’s glass beads… Her glass art is incredibly complex in both detail and color, and we thought it would look good at a scale that would abstract it from the glass bead. Creating large prints directly from her product shots, tightly cropped to isolate a specific pattern, was not a simple task as the amount of upressing needed was corrupting the detail of the image.
This challenge gave us a chance to use our equipment in a different way, and proved to be a lot of fun! We started with our 100mm f/2.8 Macro and a full set of Kenko extension tubes (about 70mm total). We placed the tripod on our computer desk, with the column inverted and a Really Right Stuff macro slide mounted on the ball head. The camera was mounted on the slide via a RRS panoramic base mounted to the tripod foot of the 100 mm, and everything was positioned and leveled so that the camera pointed straight down to the desk, between the legs of the tripod. An hefty sand bag was added via a strap to the assembly, to ensure stability, and the 5D Mk II was tethered to the iMac so that framing and critical focus could be achieved via live view and the Canon EOS utility. Light for the capture was provided by an Canon MT-24EX Macro Twin Lite, and the bead was submerged in a water bath to help control the specular reflections.

Micro photography of an original Whitney Lassini glass bead

Micro Chasm was the first capture that we saved after a few tests. It was a hit with Whitney! We had to try some more, and my favorite yet is Inner Space

Inner space, from within another of Whitney's beads

We both are very excited at these results, and we plan to create many more. We just acquired a MT-E 65 Macro lens that will allow us to reach 5:1 magnification to get even closer! We plan to continue to work tethered for this type of capture, and to use a combination of Helicon Focus and Helicon Remote to capture and stack enough images to get sufficient DoF at these minute scales.


Posted from Kissimmee, Florida, United States.

Before leaving my new printer for a whole week to embark on a business trip I had to give a really large print a try. I selected a panoramic image of some hoodoos that I captured during my first Alain Briot workshop in the area of Page, AZ. It is one of my larger panoramas, assembled from 22 frames captured with a Canon EOS 5D (then my primary camera, and still my trusty backup for the 5D Mk II) and a 50 mm f/1.4. The finished image is a crop of the total panorama, and it is still more than 110 Megapixel.

Panoramic of a hoodoo cluster, west of Page, AZ

I had a short roll of Breathing Color Elegance Rag loaded (a cotton rag, baryta finish fiber-like glossy paper) with a little more than five feet left, so I decided to see how large of a print I could make. A pleasing crop of the Hoodoo panorama came up with an aspect ratio of about 3.2 :1, or 16 by 52 inches. The file at 360 ppi is huge, but the new MacBook Pro, with its 8 GB of memory handled it flawlessly. This is the largest file I had ever fed to Nik’s Viveza 2.0, but all the toolchain worked flawlessly. After some local contrast/structure/saturation adjustment in Viveza and final output sharpening with PK Sharpener 2.0 it was time to print.

The first hiccup came as I went to save my working file before printing… I had not noticed that my document had grown to almost 3 Gigabytes in memory, and I quickly learned that 2 GB was the maximum size for a .psd! After flattening, the image was reduced to a more manageable 900 MB (!), and the save succeeded. Another good thing was the G Drive mini I just picked up – no way I would have had the patience to beam this file over the home wireless to the iMac that runs the printer! The 800Mb/sec firewire interface and the portable drive made sneakernet the most efficient way to go from the living room to the office – a flashback from the 80’s!

Printing to the 4900 went as usual, after having set up a 17” by 60 “ canvas. I grew concerned when the printed detected a clogged nozzle in the first couple of inches of printing, but to my pleasant surprise it stopped, performed a cleaning cycle and restarted printing with no visible artifacts or misalignment. Epson definitely has built a workhorse with the 4900!

I did not time the print, but it took a while, as I had the job set at 2880 dpi (droplets, not pixels) unidirectional… enough time for Whitney to prepare us a delicious breakfast. The results are awesome! A 16” by 52” print with enough detail that holds even under a small loupe! The color tonalities are spot on, and display all sorts of pink, mauve, rust and blue in the shadows from the reflections of the blue sky and the red rocks on the white sand.

I look forward to frame this up when I return from my trip – I am planning a 60” by 24” double mat, with a 2” black border and acrylic glazing to control the overall weight of the finished picture. Now the biggest challenge, finding enough wall space to display it as it deserves!

Stefano

I am pleased to announce that Lassini Creative Ventures, LLC now offers custom fine art printing services on a variety of archival media, canvas and metal substrates. We offer a fully color managed work flow and a variety of retouching, editing and sizing services, custom edge treatments for canvas gallery wraps and protective overcoats.
In addition to our printing service, we offer custom cut mats to match your fine art prints, backer boards, gallery wrap services and custom framing to your specifications.

All of our printing and mounting/framing employ the finest archival materials and techniques available, and are fully customizable to help you achieve your artistic vision.

Please contact us through the blog contact facility to discuss your needs and for a customized quote. Volume orders as well as individual projects are welcome!

Posted from Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States.