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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Zenryuuji Temple (善龍寺)
Kyoto, Japan

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You may have noticed that the images were a bit smaller in my previous post about Fumie's pointe shoes, compared to the sizes I normally use (such as in the post before that, full of, uncharacteristically, shots of me).

For years, I've followed a basic pattern on my blog for landscape-orientation photos — those wider than tall — giving them a basic width of 690 pixels, but yesterday's were a bit smaller at 600 pixels wide. For portrait-oriented images — those taller than wide — I have traditionally gone with 700 pixels tall, but yesterday limited it to 500 pixels tall.

Depending on your particular combination of viewing hardware, screen settings, and personal preferences, you may prefer one way more than the other, and would even perhaps even like to see the size go further in one direction or the other.

Since I can't know or predict each person's viewing hardware, screen settings, and personal preferences, I thought I'd ask: for a photo-heavy blog like mine, what do you think about the image size?

Does it perhaps depend on the subject? Still life vs. human interest? Maybe you feel one way about the landscape-oriented temple shot above, but differently about the portrait-oriented portrait below?

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — ¹/640 sec, f/1.4, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Always-Affable Paul Barr
patiently waiting for me to put the camera down and finish my coffee,
so we can meet some other friends for the wine tasting at Kyoto Station

There's no “correct” to this — it's all personal preference — so please let me know what you think in the comments below. (And my Mom asks me to reiterate the request for comments to include the city/country you're writing from, just for fun.)

I doubt there will be a magic “Goldilocks” just-right consensus, but I won't know until I ask, so I'm asking.

And while I'm at it, let me ask what you think about the duotone temple shot above, which I took on the outing that produced this amazing and colorful photo. I'm not sure the vibe of that photo, the whole “everything out of focus except for the tree trunk on the side” thing, really works... I flip flop between “it's really nice” and “it's tripe!”. I dunno.

The color version (seen below) was so vibrant... this was at the height of the fall-foliage season... that I decided to take it as a challenge to try a black & white version, but thought I'd get a little crazy and try a duotone by hand, something I'd never done. I futzed around with a bazillion different looks, from dark and moody to bright and cheerful, and finally got so dizzy with it all that I just stopped, and the lead photo of this post is what I had at the time.

Here's the color version:

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — ¹/500 sec, f/1.4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Zenryuuji Temple (善龍寺)
Kyoto, Japan

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The same location is also seen in the last four photos on this post.

Looking forward to hearing what folks think about all this!

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/4, ISO 400 — image data
Fumie's New Pointe

Fumie was excited today to get a new pair of pointe shoes (ballet “toe shoes”), having ordered a special custom pair from Tokyo ballet shop Avignon, with the part directly above the toes (the “vamp”) shorter than normal.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 220 — image data
Short Vamp

She's been looking for a pair of pointe shoes that really suits her feet for years, and recently found a pair from Avignon that showed promise, but the vamp was a bit too tall for her preference. Avignon is one of the few places in Japan that will build to order, so with great hope she asked for a pair with the vamp shortened by a centimeter.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 250 — image data
“Tip 1 cm Shallow”

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 900 — image data
Old and New
where “old” means two weeks

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800 — image data
Pre and Post
new one in the foreground before Fumie applies a leather platform pad

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800 — image data
Heel
It's supposed to say “Avignon”
( but I have a hard time seeing anything but “Prиgnon” )

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400 — image data
Stitch & Nail

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 6400 — image data
Anti-Fray

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 2200 — image data
Right

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1800 — image data
Initial Test

It's quite a bit of work to prepare a new pair for actual use, such as sewing on extra ribbons exactly where her feet need them, and gluing the front platform pad. Then breaking them in. She has a couple of lessons tomorrow, and is giddy at the prospect to try them.

Joint Effort
combining our two passions

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Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/1000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400 — image data
Still Fresh
nine days in the vase

I lost the last two days of my life to a cold that started coming on while writing the previous post. Starting to feel better today, a light and airy subject like flowers helps to brighten the mood.

I have the opposite of a green thumb... I kill every plant I touch, it seems, regardless of whether it's potted or vased. When I get cut flowers from the florist (e.g. for Mother's Day, etc.) I sometimes get that expensive liquid you add to the vase water that's supposed to extend the life of the flowers, but it has never seemed to work for me, and the flowers go bad after a couple of days. (This is after, mind you, re-cutting the stems crisply at an angle and all that stuff that's supposed to help them thrive.)

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/1000 sec, f/4, ISO 800 — image data
Creamy
helped along by a touch of Lightroom's “negative clarity”

Last week when getting flowers for Fumie for our 14^th wedding anniversary, I thought to ask the florist about that keep-em-going liquid stuff, and he told me his secret: just add a dash of bleach to the water when you first fill it, and you're done.

I was skeptical, to say the least. Bleach smells!

He said that you don't have to change the water... the bleach kills the bacteria, which is what sends the flowers bad before their time. How much? Just a capful.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/1000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 800 — image data

It sure works.

These flowers have been sitting in front of the window for nine days now, and still look pretty fresh. I'd added a small splash of bleach, which did smell at first because the concentrate was exposed as it was getting poured, but it was never noticed after that. These particular flowers don't have much of a smell themselves to begin with, so it's not like a strong flower smell was merely covering up the bleach smell.

An added bonus of not having to change the water is not having to recut the stems every day. It's truly a “fire and forget” kind of thing.

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/1000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 400 — image data

I wish I would have known about this long ago.

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Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/1250 sec, f/5, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Me Playing Dressup
Paul swung by with his camera while I was out on a date with my wife last month.
photo by Paul Barr

Back during the Lightroom 2 days (circa early 2009), I spent some intense weeks writing a really great plugin, allowing a user to create custom image metadata fields on the fly. If a user suddenly decides that he wants an extra metadata field to describe the weather for a shot, or the flash setup, or a model's name, or whatever, just a few clicks in a plugin dialog and voilà, it would appear with the standard image metadata alongside each photo. I really wanted this for my own use, and I knew lots of folks would be jazzed about it as well.

Unfortunately, I eventually noticed an incompatibility with how Lightroom sometimes loads plugins. I spent much energy trying everything I could think of to dance around the issue. I'm pretty good at this kind of thing because I routinely push Lightroom's plugin infrastructure well beyond what it was designed for. In a twisted way, this is part of the fun of Lightroom plugin development for me, to come up with “creative” ways to get things done and make my photo workflow easier.

But in this case, back in 2009, it beat me, and with great reluctance I abandoned the plugin.

Nikon D3 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/640 sec, f/4, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dedication To The Shot
( this shot )
photo by Paul Barr

(I'm populating this narcissistic post with various shots of me that I've accumulated from friends I go out shooting with, mostly by Paul on his visits to Kyoto.)

Over the years I've kept an eye out for a change in Lightroom plugin infrastructure that would happen to allow the plugin to work, but it's never come. (To be clear, I can't blame Adobe because, again, I'm pushing things well beyond the design envelope). But on a whim last night, perhaps in an effort to avoid actually having to address the hundreds of request-for-help emails that have accumulated recently, I pulled the old plugin carcass from my archive and gave it a try.

It still didn't work, but I expected that.

Nikon D3 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/1600 sec, f/8, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Squished Nose
happens every time the camera is in landscape mode
photo by Paul Barr

But even though Lightroom's plugin-infrastructure tools have not improved in this particular area, they have definitely improved here and there in other areas, so I gave it another try. Combined with perhaps a bit more ingenuity under my belt this time, after a few hours of hacking around, I figured out a way to make it work!

Woo-hoo!

Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/200 sec, f/4, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Just Rewards!
the beer she was pulling was for me
photo by Paul Barr

Getting the custom-metadata plugin working was great news, but also dreadful news.

It's great because now I can use this plugin for myself. It works. It does what I need. My workflow will be better because of it.

It's dreadful because I know others would find it useful, so I feel a strong desire to release the plugin, and that would take a lot more work. I'd have to bullet-proof the thing. I'd have to write up docs and FAQs and make screenshots. I'd have to add all kinds of things to the plugin that I don't personally need, but I'm sure others will ask for (and in some cases, demand). Some of those things (such as the ability to transfer the custom metadata when exporting or merging catalogs) pose serious complications whose potential solutions are all among the “dammed if you do, dammed if you don't” can't-please-everyone genre that will certainly, no matter what, generate complaints and requests.

E-P2 — ¹/640 sec, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Futzing With the Polarizer Filter
"Why can't Nikon design a lens hood that incorporates access to a filter? They must all be idiots!"
photo by Nicolas Joannin

So in the end, I will spend a ridiculous amount of time doing all this, resulting in yet another incessant flow of request-for-help mails that fill my inbox and increase my stress. That sounds like a complaint, and I suppose it is, but I choose this hobby freely because I like most aspects of it. I just need to be smart about how I handle the stressful aspects of it, lest I let it drive me into another stress breakdown.

I went to bed last night trying to decide whether I want to even try to release it. Do I want to accept the burden of stress that inevitably comes with it? If so, can I do anything now to decrease the amount of stress generated later?

Nikon D3 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/200 sec, f/4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Taking A Rest
while on the outing that produced this post and this post.
photo by Paul Barr

I woke up without an answer, but as I helped prepare Anthony for school, I decided to at least give it a try, to prepare a version with ample caveats about data migration, and see how it went from there. If it became popular, I'd feel good about spending more energy to tackle the tough problems that remained, and if not, well, I just saved myself a lot of grief.

Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — ¹/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
In a Friendly Frame of Mind
photo by Paul Barr

So it was with that frame of mind that I saw Anthony off to school, prepared a cup of coffee, and checked in on the computer. I found among my mail the notice of a gift from a Boston photographer who wanted to register one of my plugins. As per the “donationware” thing, he didn't have to send me anything at all to use my plugins, but he kindly chose to send $5. That was nice, but he also added this personal message to me:

Well, that's not a pleasant way to start the day.

Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38mm — ¹/50 sec, f/4, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Oh My!
Call the cops, someone was rude on the Internet!
photo by Paul Barr

Well, it certainly didn't put me in the nose-to-the-grindstone mood I would need to tackle the custom-metadata plugin.

Granted, the guy did send me a dollar for a previous version of Lightroom as recently as 2010, but I don't think this calls for words like “insidious” and “extortion”. I require nothing. I returned his $5 with a note that I wanted it only if it were a true gift. 'Cause that's, you know, how I roll.

I shouldn't have been surprised, based on the maturity of his initial comment, but his subsequent replies only went downhill from there. Sigh.

Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Manners and Civility on the Internet
still looking
photo by Paul Barr

Anyway, I thought I'd vent a bit with this post to the sympathetic ear of the friendly audience who reads my blog. (Hi Mom.)

So, would anyone have interest in that kind of custom-metadata plugin?

Nikon D3 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 35mm — ¹/200 sec, f/4, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
“I'll Get Right On It”
photo by Paul Barr

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So, as I mentioned this morning, we had a nice view of the annular eclipse today. I'd never seen one (nor have I ever seen a total eclipse, except on TV). Here are a few more pictures.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 + 1.4X TC @ 420mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
First Contact
the moon is just starting to nip at the sun, somewhere behind those clouds

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 + 1.4X TC @ 420mm cropped — ¹/1600 sec, f/8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
35 Minutes To Go
quick snap from my veranda using a “D5” 1/_100,000 filter

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Slightly Wider View

That picture above illustrates in one way just how bright the sun is... I was using stacked filters to cut all but 1/_3,200^th of the light, leaving everything dark except the sun, which was still completely blown out. I wonder what the dynamic range is during one of these things, between the surface of the moon and the surface of the sun.

Notice the odd colors in the clouds? Sometimes you see that at night with the moon, and I suppose it's related to conditions in the upper atmosphere, but in any case you certainly couldn't see it in person because either you were using special sun goggles (which made everything but the sun completely black), or you were looking with the naked eye and anything that close to the sun was too bright to look at.

So the colors look odd, but we'd probably see them often during the day if our eyes could handle the brightness. (And speaking of handling the brightness, I've nudged up the variance of some of these shots in Lightroom, to exaggerate the colors for artistic effect.)

For the main event, I moved to near the main gate of the Heian Shrine, which has appeared many times on my blog (such as this shot from six and a half years ago). The sun was coming up behind it lengthwise, so I wondered whether the distinctive “oriental” shape of its silhouette would be interesting.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 95mm — ¹/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Partial Eclipse
Main gate of the Heian Shrine, Kyoto Japan
11 minutes before annularity

The sun is completely blown out (no detail whatsoever), but I like how the reflections (refractions?) in the lens make for a green “ghost” of the eclipse just to the right of the sun, and an inverted red “ghost” down below.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 + 1.4X TC @ 420mm cropped — ¹/15 sec, f/8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Oops
jiggly tripod reverberations become apparent during a misfire

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 + 1.4X TC @ 420mm cropped — ¹/1600 sec, f/8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
That's Better
small sunspot about to get occluded

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 + 1.4X TC @ 420mm cropped — ¹/6 sec, f/8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Another Oops
but a pretty one

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 + 1.4X TC @ 420mm cropped — ¹/1600 sec, f/8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Second Contact
you can see some sun peaking through some valleys
a few seconds after the nominal start of the full ring effect

I was surprised at how it didn't become dark. The sun was 94% covered (6% exposed) but you couldn't really tell... you certainly couldn't look at it with the naked eye without regretting it instantly, and if you didn't know something was going on, you might not even notice. With 94% hidden. The sun is really really really really bright.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 + 1.4X TC @ 420mm cropped — ¹/1600 sec, f/8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Skirting The Edge

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 190mm — ¹/160 sec, f/7.1, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Trying That Shot Again

I really couldn't see on the back of the camera whether anything was working out, so I just gave it a shot.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/320 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Spectators

I heard that the park area along the length of the Kamo River (such as seen here and here) was absolutely packed. It sounds festive.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 + 1.4X TC @ 420mm cropped — ¹/6 sec, f/8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Note Quite Sure
but looks interesting

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Trying With Fewer Filters

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 + 1.4X TC @ 420mm cropped — ¹/2500 sec, f/11, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Departing Moon

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/250 sec, f/6.3, ISO 320 — map & image data — nearby photos
Those Crazy Colors
looking very moon-like

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/250 sec, f/6.3, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Where
is my green “ghost”?

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/80 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
A Bit Of Detail
in the shadows on this one
at the expense of the sun and “ghost” blowing out even further

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — ¹/800 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Less Blowout

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — ¹/8000 sec, f/5, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
No Filters
but still needed a zippy 1/_8,000^th of a second to get even this