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Sneak-preview video of a lens-correction feature that will be part of Lightroom 3:

Photoshop and Lightroom Lens Correction Feature Preview

The video shows ACR (Adobe Camera Raw), but the presenter (Tom Hogarty, Lightroom's product manager) makes it clear that the same functionality will be part of Lr3 as well.

The ability to correct for lens distortion will be so welcome, especially for lenses that have lots of compromises. For example, the Nikkor 18-200VR I used on a camping trip a few years ago left all the ocean horizons — which should be flat — with a strong bow.

Even top-level lenses need some corrections... the video shows an example with a Zeiss.

The recent announcement by Sigma that it's providing lens-correction profiles for Photoshop bodes well for Lightroom and my new Sigma Bigma. I haven't noticed yet whether The Bigma suffers from much distortion, but it's a 10× superzoom, so I'd assume it does. One thing I have noticed, though, is that it has strong vignetting in some cases, so it could certainly use this new Lr3 lens-correction feature just on that count.

Can't wait!

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Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 1000 mm — ¹/10 sec, f/13, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
1,000mm  –  1/10^th second  –  Handheld/Unbraced
Yes, the Sigma 50-500mm “Bigma” optical stabilization is that good

During the return home after yesterday's Daimonji hike, Anthony and I stopped for a cake at a cafe we found along the way, Cafe Gremer. The cake was great, and the home-made lemonade (with lemons from the backyard!) was superb, but the interior of the shop was very dark and gloomy, right out of a fairytale nightmare, immediately bringing to mind the worry that we might be devoured by a hermit witch.

But a tiny frosted window immediately behind our seats was getting hit by direct sunlight, splashing a luxuriously delicious glow onto the tasteful flower arrangement on the table, so I pulled out the camera to play as we waited for our order. It had the Sigma 50-500mm superzoom attached, and also had the 2× teleconverter that extends the zoom to 1,000mm and the magnification to 0.64×.

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 210 mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/6, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bigma Without the 2×TC

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 490 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/13, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Bigma With the 2×TC

While playing in this wonderful small splash of light with a lens that could go to 1,000mm, I wondered what it might do in the darker reaches of the restaurant, so on a whim, I went to full zoom and snapped a picture of one of the thousand nick-knacks filling every conceivable surface of the interior, in this case a Pinocchio hanging above the counter where the proprietress worked and chatted amiably with the regulars that filled the seats.

I was just sitting there free-holding the huge lens + camera + TC combo, not even bracing my elbows on the table. I knew it was a throw-away test shot with no hope, but playing around is how I learn, and in this case I was floored to find the result was reasonably sharp. The large version of the Pinocchio shot above was exported from Lightroom with all default settings... no extra post-processing at all.

I wouldn't expect that I have the skill to get this kind of result when it counts, but it's comforting to know that the Sigma OS will allow it if my skill does.

The Nikon D700's low-light abilities are amazing (see “Impossible Photography: No Light, No Tripod, No Hope. D700 and a 50mm f/1.2” and “Pushing Lowlight-Photography Limits: The Atta Terrace Hotel at Night” for examples), and I sometimes have the ability to hold the camera fairly still (such as in “In the Ballpark of Hope: Okinawan Grave In the Dark”), but 1,000mm at 1/10th of a second is just ridiculously outside the envelope..... or should be.

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 600 mm — ¹/160 sec, f/13, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos

Continued here...

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Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Comin' Right At Ya'

I was shocked today when out of the blue Anthony said that he wanted to climb Mt. Daimonji, a rather short bump of a mountain on the east side of Kyoto noted for the big “大” on its side, visible from most everywhere in Kyoto, and coincidentally appearing on my blog just the other day (but described in more detail in my ”Daimonji's Hidoko Fire Pits” post from several years ago).

Anthony had hiked this mountain three years ago (where in this case “hiked” meant “was carried by daddy” for much of it) and had shown no interest since until this morning's sudden pronouncement. The timing was perfect for me, having recently gotten a big lens that can zoom to 1,000mm, so I'd been thinking it might be fun to bring it up there.

We had nothing else planned, so I brought the Bigma (and broke out my monopod for the first time in years) and just did it.

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 340 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/9, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Not Your Average Hiker
Kyoto Prefectural Policeman on the mountain above the fire pits

Despite being a Sunday with wonderful weather, the paths were not crowded at all, and I got bunches of great shots of Anthony that I'll share sometime later.

As we neared the top of the mountain, I came across a small group of retiree hikers in animated conversation, and in the short time I was in earshot as I passed them, I learned that a small girl and her 65-year-old grandpa had gone missing on the mountain. It's a young mountain with very steep-walled ravines on all sides of the many paths, so despite being relatively small, someone could easily get lost and never, ever found.

I kept my eyes out as we descended from the top toward the big “大” and its many fire pits.

Just as we were breaking through the trees on the path from the top of the mountain down to the cleared area of the pits, we were greeted by a police helicopter rising from below...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/9, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos

It was flying all around for no apparent purpose. One would think it might be used in looking for the missing people, but the way it flew seemed pretty useless for that, often flying way away over the city, then back to us and around, then here and there, but none of it seemed useful for searching. I still don't know what they were doing.

But it gave me something to practice with my new lens, so I availed myself of the opportunity (and if you look at the quality of these shots in any detail, you'll see that I badly need the practice)...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/9, ISO 280 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/10, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
Hazy Day in Kyoto

(The wooded area in the shot above is the northern part of the Kyoto Imperial Palace grounds in the background, photos of which have appeared in my blog many times. It looks densely wooded from this angle, but there's a lot going on down there. For those interested in exploring vicariously, you can check out my interactive blog photo map centered there, or see a sample selection: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ).

The fire pits themselves were quite crowded, because there's a short and easy path leading up from near the Ginkakuji Temple (“The Silver Pavilion”) that enters the “大” area from below. It's much more beautiful to approach from the top as Anthony and I did, but that entails a real hike with a lot of climbing, so it's much less popular.

Among the crowd were a fair number of policemen, most of which probably didn't expect to be climbing a mountain today...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Goin' Casual

As the helicopter continued its apparently pointless gyrations well away from where it might be any help, I went for a photo with an interesting background. Many were with the 2× teleconverter (which as I discussed the other day, lowers the photographic quality — the “IQ” — considerably), so the softness is not due completely to my lack of skill or the haze...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 650 mm — ¹/3200 sec, f/12, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Temple in the Background
Kurodani Temple, which is less than a kilometer from my place, but I've yet to visit

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 1000 mm — ¹/3200 sec, f/13, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Oooh, a Pagoda, Even Better!

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/3200 sec, f/6.3, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
My House
is down there among the muck

(I presented a sort of pictorial, interactive view of that area on my blog a few years ago, in “Kyoto's Okazaki Area, From Mt. Daimonji”.)

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/3200 sec, f/5, ISO 450 — map & image data — nearby photos
Helicopter at 50mm
(it's there, really)

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/3200 sec, f/6.3, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
four seconds later,
Helicopter at 500mm
( you've just got to love the convenience of a 10x superzoom )

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 460 mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/6.3, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Less Haze Straight Up
the sky is actually blue when you're not looking through the long end of a layer of haze

After we had descended back to the edge of the city, we were getting on my scooter when a police car came to pick up some policemen who emerged from the forest soon after, and we were able to hear the good news: turns out that there was only one missing person — a five-year-old girl — and she had been found wandering by an elderly pair of hikers, who brought her down to a police station. Woo-hoo!

Finally, in a nod to the Freaky Wavy Lines Quiz Answer that I posted this morning, one of the shots of Anthony today exhibited it, visible in the larger view you get when clicking through on the thumbnail below.....

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/10, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Continued here...

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Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/6.3, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

I posted the picture above, of a spotlight on a rock garden in Kyoto, in my ”Amorphous Wavy Lines Quiz” post last week, asking whether anyone knew the reason for the wavy lines one sees at full resolution:

Full-Resolution Crop
of one of many sections of these wavy-line tracks

The answer differs depending on how honest you are with yourself. In my case, the true answer is

“I don't know.”

Being a bit less honest with myself, I'll say

“Likely some kind of diffraction, possibly related to the “discrete points” nature of the image sensor, but I'm not sure”

But if I want to completely fool myself into thinking I understand what's going on here, I'll just say:

“It's caused by grass in the foreground.”

It is caused by the grass in the foreground — that's true — but I don't understand why the grass in the foreground has this effect in this situation.

In this wider, 1/15th second ISO 12,800 shot, you can see a strip of grass in the foreground...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/15 sec, f/6.3, ISO 12800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Restaurant Rock Garden at Night

I've seen this effect a few times. One I recall is from shooting Anthony's cousins Grace and Luke in a boat at my folks' place. The many layers of cattails and trees sometimes made for this freaky (diffraction?) effect:

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cattail
and a good dose of freakiness

Full-Resolution Crop
( My brother has 6½ fingers on each hand, not 9¾ )

In the quiz, the focus was behind the effect, but in this case, it's in front.

Here's another example...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/1250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
looks like a
Time-Travel Portal
is in the process of opening

Yet, I take pictures in seemingly-similar situations all the time, and normally don't experience any of these effects....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
“No Time Travel For You”

So if there are any physicists in the house who can explain this, I'd love to understand it, at least enough to be able to predict whether it will/won't happen in a given situation.

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Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 210 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heron
at the Biwako Canal, Kyoto Japan

A great blue heron was sitting on a fence by the canal this morning when I walked Anthony to his bus stop, and thinking it was Aotan the Heron that I posted about a few years ago, I fetched my camera to do a followup post.

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 340 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/11, ISO 3600 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/14, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos

After comparing pictures from before, I don't think it's the same bird. He was equally unfazed by me, though. Perhaps it's the same one as in my ”Great Wet Heron” post? There are a lot of herons around.

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/9, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/11, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old Football Injury

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 65 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/14, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos

It's a popular area for jogging, with one lap around the block being about a 410m (a quarter mile), and not requiring the crossing of any streets. Some kids were approaching, so I ran out (with my zoom) to meet them...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Morning Jog