Why the manual step?
18th January 2010One of the consequences of buying a new camera is that your current photo processing software may not be fully equipped for the job of handling the images that it creates. This is a particular issue with raw image files and Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 was unable to completely handle DNG files made with my Pentax K10D until I upgraded to version 7. Yes, I do realise that the upgrading camera should been in order but I only lost the white balance adjustments so I could with things as they until upgrading gained a more compelling case.
As things stood, Elements 7 was unable to import CR2 files from my Canon PowerShot G11 into the Organiser so it was off to the appropriate page on the Adobe website for a Camera Raw updater. I picked up the latest release of Camera Raw (5.6 at the time of writing) even though it was found in the Elements 8 category (don’t be put by this because release notes address the version compatibility question more extensively). Strangely, the updater doesn’t complete everything because you still need to copy Camera Raw.8bi from the zip archive and backup the original. Quite why this couldn’t have been more automated, even with user prompts for file names and locations, is beyond me but that is how it is. However, once all was in place, CR2 files were handled by Elements without missing a beat.
A case of the reverse Midas touch?
18th May 2009Last week, a power cut put my main home PC of of action. It may have been recoverable if that silly accident of a few weeks back hadn’t happened but a rebuild is progress. That hasn’t been going so well but I somehow am managing to remain hopeful that an avenue of exploration will yield some fruit. Thoughts of throwing in the towel and call in the professionals rather than throwing good money after bad are gathering. The saga is causing me to question the sense of self building in place of buying something ready built. Saying that, they can have their off days too.
In the meantime, I have been displaced onto the spare desktop PC and the laptop. In other words, my home computing needs are being fulfilled to a point though the feeling of frustrated displacement and partial disconnection from my data remains; I have been able to extricate most of my digital photos and my web building so things are far from being hopeless. With every disappointment, there remains an opportunity or two. The spare desktop runs Debian so I have been spending some time seeing if I can bend that to my will and it can be done, sometimes after a fashion.
A few posts should result from this period, not least regarding working with Debian. On the subject of hardware, I’ll not elaborate until the matter comes to a more permanent resolution. From past attempts (all were successful in the end), I know that the business of PC building can feel like a dark art: you are left there wondering why none of your efforts summon a working system to life and then it all comes together in the blink of an eye and you wonder why all the effort was expended. The best analogy that I can offer is awaiting a bus or train; it often seems that the waiting takes longer than the journey. Restoring my home computing to what it was before is a mere triviality compared to what some people have to suffer but resolution of a problem always puts a spring in my step.
ImageMagick and Ubuntu 9.04
5th May 2009Using a command line tool like ImageMagick for image processing may sound a really counter-intuitive thing to do but there’s no need to do everything on a case by case interactive basis. Image resizing and format conversion come to mind here. Helper programs are used behind the scenes too with Ghostscript being used to create Postscript files, for example.
The subject of helper programs brings me to an issue that has hampered me recently. While I am aware that there are tools like F-Spot available, I am also wont to use a combination of shell scripting (BASH & KSH), Perl and ImageMagick for organising my digital photos. My preference for using Raw camera files (DNG & CRW) means that ImageMagick cannot access these without a little helper. In the case of Ubuntu, it’s UFRaw. However, Jaunty Jackalope appears to have seen UFRaw updated to a version that is incompatible with the included version of ImageMagick (6.4.5 as opposed to 3.5.2 at the time of writing). The result is that the command issued by ImageMagick to UFRaw -- issue the command man ufraw-batch to see the details -- is not accepted by the included version of the latter, 0.15 if you’re interested. It seems that an older release of UFRaw accepted the output device ppm16 (16-bit PPM files) but this should now be specified as ppm for the output device and 16 for the output depth. In a nutshell, where the parameter output-type did the lot, you now need both output-type and output-depth.
I thought of decoupling things by using UFRaw to create 16-bit PPM files for processing by ImageMagick but to no avail. The identify command wouldn’t return the date on which the image was taken. I even changed the type to 8-bit JPEG’s with added EXIF information but no progress was made. In the end, a mad plan came to mind: creating a VirtualBox VM running Debian. The logic was that if Debian deserves its reputation for solidity, dependencies like ImageMagick and UFRaw shouldn’t be broken and I wasn’t wrong. To make it fly though, I needed to see if I could get Guest Additions installed on Debian. Out of the box, the supported kernel version must be at least 2.6.27 and Debian’s is 2.6.26 so additional work was on the cards. First, GCC, Make and the correct kernel header files need to be installed. Once those are in place, the installation works smoothly and a restart sets the goodies in motion. To make the necessary Shared folder to be available, a command like the following was executed:
mount -t vboxfs [Shared Folder name] [mount point]
Once that deed was done and ImageMagick instated, the processing that I have been doing for new DSLR images was reinstated. Ironically, Debian’s version of ImageMagick, 6.3.7, is even older than Ubuntu’s but it works and that’s the main thing. There is an Ubuntu bug report for this on Launchpad so I hope that it gets fixed at some point in the near future. However, that may mean awaiting 9.10 or Karmic Koala so I’m glad to have the workaround in the meantime.
No autofocus?
25th March 2009
Recently, I recently treated myself to a Sigma 18-125 mm f/3.8-5.6 DC HSM zoom lens for my Pentax K10D. There was a wait for the item to appear and I then found that the lens’ autofocus facility wasn’t compatible with the body. Standard wisdom would have it that I sent the thing back and ask for a replacement or a refund.
Perhaps inexplicably, I did neither. In fact, I came to the conclusion, that since I make photos of landscapes anyway, that been slowed down by the lack of autofocus was no bad thing except perhaps when appealing light makes fleeting appearances. It is true to say that a used Pentax manual focus lens would have been cheaper but I did what I did.
The camera’s autofocus indicator still works and the 18-55 mm zoom that came with the camera wasn’t impressive anyway, so taking matters into my own hands was something that happened a lot. Now, I have better quality glass in front of the sensor and with a metal mount and longer range too. The lens comes with a petal hood too, though I keep that for when I really need it rather than keeping it on the lens and stopping myself focussing the thing.
Speaking of zooming and focussing, the controls work well and smoothly without being at all loose. The AF setting gets used to lock the focus and the zoom can be locked at the wide end so that the lens doesn’t get into the habit of zooming under the influence of gravity, not a bad thing. For future lens purchases, I might be more inclined to ask about compatibility next time around (I may have been spoiled by the Canons that I used to use) but I remain content for now.
All in all, it feels like a quality item and it’s a pity that Pentax saw fit to make the changes that they made, or that Sigma didn’t seem to have kept up with them. Saying that, my photographic subjects usually don’t run off so being slowed down is no bad thing at all, especially if it makes me create better photos.
More digital than film?
26th October 2007Despite the rampant progress of digital photography, I have continued to stick with film and sit astride the fence. That is something that I wish to continue but my most recent trips into the outdoors have seen me use my Pentax K10D exclusively. That, however, could be something to do with the subject matter. My most recent trot took me into what might be described as featureless moorland, a tricky subject to capture in the best way. So, possibly because of the lesser likelihood of success, I stuck with digital since any lack of success costs less. Previous trips took me out and about locally where I live and I seem to be more likely to use digital, possibly because I have been around the area a lot with my film camera anyway. Also, the vistas, as pleasant as they are, do not possess the drama of the likes of Highland Scotland, the English Lake District, or the mountainous parts North Wales.
That does lead to the impression that I am keeping film for the new and dramatic stuff and it may be true. it is, however, not entirely deliberate and I will continue to take both digital and film cameras with me on my excursions. My reason for taking a DSLR is that I want to put some photos into my posts on my outdoors blog and the world of digital easily speeds that process; my laggardness with getting films processed would add to the time taken too. And film? There is still a certain something about getting a print done for a photo album and the process does force me to print my photos, something that is not a compulsion in the digital world. There is also a greater feeling of permanance with film, a format that has been with us in its various guises for over a hundred years. With the pace of change in the world of computing, would the likes of DNG hold its own for that long?