Feisol CT-3401 & Really Right Stuff BH-40

When I was first looking for a tripod, I read an article by Thom Hogan.  After reading the article, I had made up my mind to buy a large tripod with 3 leg sections and a ball head.  I bought a Giottos GB4180 aluminum tripod and a Really Right Stuff BH-55 ball head.  The combo is really a big set up.  I think you could probably use it with any camera/lens and it would be stable.  Overkill for me.  I think the Hogan article really steered me this way.  Hindsight - I would have bought a different tripod.

The current state of my photography centers on getting out for a walk and taking the camera.  If I happen to take a few pictures, then cool.  If not, I got out for a nice walk.  Lugging around the Giottos/BH-55 combo had become a chore and I wanted a smaller tripod.  I hunted around the web for a while and starting reading about Feisol.  I read a couple good reviews and a couple bad reviews.  I decided to take a chance and bought a Feisol CT-3401 tripod.  My main priority was having a smaller tripod that would pack down a bit and was light.  Also, I decided on carbon fiber as I like to shoot during the winter and the metal tripod gets cold in the hand.  The CT-3401 has four-section legs that do not rotate when you extend them.  This is a feature is part of their "Rapid" line of tripods.

CT-3401 specs (2010)
max height (no center column) 51.9"
folded length:18.8"
weight: 2.62 lbs
max load:19.8 lbs

The tripod arrived nicely packaged - box in a box.  The first thing that stuck me was how light the tripod was.  I tried the BH-55 head on it, but it was way oversized and made the tripod very top heavy.  I purchased a RRS BH-40 ball head with a clamp head.  It matched perfectly.  Not exactly precise, but my bathroom scale says this combo is about 4 pounds.  I had read a few complaints about the tripod bag not being long enough to fit the tripod with the head attached, but Feisol must have gotten the message because this combo fits in the bag.  The RRS storage bag fits over the head and part of the legs while attached to the tripod and provides a little protection out in the field (I already dropped the new head....)  The viewfinder of my camera sits at 58".  I am 5'10" and have to bend over a bit to look through the viewfinder.  Feisol does offer a center column kit for the CT-3401 that adds about 12".

I took the tripod out last Sunday walked around San Francisco for about 4 hours.  I don't have a way to attach the tripod to my backpack, so I carried it in hand or over my shoulder for the whole time.  I shot with a Canon SLR and a couple different lenses - 28mm, 50mm and 70-200mm.  The 70-200mm has a tripod collar that attaches to the ballhead clamp.  Overall, I thought the combo was stable.  I did notice some movement through the viewfinder when I was working with the 70-200 at 200mm when my hand was on the camera.  Not a big deal for me as I usually use a cable release or timer when shooting with longer lens on a tripod.  The combo seemed a little too light some times as when I was on a steep slope and hadn't adjusted the leg angles, it seemed like I could have easily knocked the tripod to the downhill side of the street.  I did some shooting on a busy street in Chinatown and didn't feel too conspicuous with this tripod.

So overall, I'm pretty happy with this combo.  I'm sure there are better tripods out there for more money, but this fits my current budget.

Feisol CT-3401 :$289
RRS BH-40 w/ LR clamp" $375

Canon 20D / Really Right Stuff Panoramic Head Lens Node

June Lake

I've been shooting some panoramic pictures lately.  I have a Really Right Stuff panoramic clamp on my tripod.  Combine it with PTGui and stitching is a snap.  As best as I can work out, here are the node slide setting I use for my Really Right Stuff panorama head combined with my Canon 20D and a couple lenses:

28mm lens: 10.2mm on the slide rail.
50mm lens: 11.8mm on the slide rail.
100mm lens: 9.8mm on the slide rail.

Yosemite, Mammoth and Tioga Pass

 

El Capitan

I spent a few days in the Sierra Mountains this past week.  I did a little shooting but not as much as I normally would do on a trip.  This trip turned out to be more about just being out and a little reconnaissance for future outings.  Yosemite Valley was definitely less crowded in the "shoulder season."  They were closing many of the campgrounds outside the valley and closing many of the concessions in the valley.  I was able to drive up to the ranger station at Tioga Pass and get a campsite at Crane Flat.  I actually had a choice of campsites.  I doubt I would have had the luxury in the Summer season.

The valley was much less crowded than Summer as well.  I've been to Yosemite once before in the Winter and remember it being blissfully quiet.  The weather was very pleasant and warm enough that I rode my bike with shorts and a t-shirt.  The valley elevation is about 4,000 ft.  The colors in the valley were not quite ready to change just yet.  I also visited June Lake where the elevation is approximately 7,600 ft.  The colors were maybe a week or two off from full peak.  It was already spectacular there I can imagine being there in the full Fall colors.  It was significantly cooler in the upper elevations.

I really enjoyed the Mammoth Lakes area.  It was definitely dead there.  Many of the restaurants were closed - their season is Summer and Winter.  Not much going on any other time of the year.  Hiking out at the Devil's Postpile was very pleasant.  I'd also like to spend some time camping down there, not as much for the photography as for the fishing - I had some nice quiet moments watching trout in the rivers and lakes imagining casting a fly out...

At a Tioga Pass turn out overlooking the Tuolumne River

Tioga pass is awesome.  It's just like being in Yosemite Valley looking up at El Capitan or looking out over the Grand Canyon.  There's no sense of scale to put its grandeur in perspective and a picture really doesn't do it justice.  Point Olmstead looks back out over toward Yosemite Valley and has lots of interesting rock/boulders.  Coming down from the pass into Lee Vining is a very steep couple miles and the scenery is great.  I pulled out a few times and got out just to take it all in.  I'll definitely be returning the Tioga Pass to do some hiking/fishing/photography.

Fuji X100

How F'ing cools is this?!!!  How lovely.  I've been thinking about buying a Canon GIII QL17 (I still might...).  I was thinking "Why doesn't Canon just put a nice large sensor into this thing?"  Well, Fuji has beat them to it.  I don't recall that last time I really rooted for a corporation/company, but I hope this camera kicks some major sales butt. It's about time we see something cool in the camera market.  I suppose the ultimate question will be how responsive it is.  If it's slow, I mean like any shutter lag, it'll be a failure.  I don't think price will be the ultimate question because if it reacts very fast, people are going to buy this thing.  It is already on my list of things to try and buy next year - I'm starting to save already.

Shadow

Your Family and Friends Want to Buy Your Art

I went on a printing / matting binge with the smoke images.  I had stacks of matted prints laying around the office.   I had recently listened to a podcast at Lenswork titled "What to do" (podcast #640) regarding a photographer that had stacks of images around the home and was wondering what to do with all the images.  Brooks Jensen suggestion: Distribute it.  Get it out there.

I decided to try and sell a few at the office. 

I brought a few of the large prints to work as they are pretty eye-catching.  It was nice to have people stop by and look and talk about the images.  I received many compliments.  It was a nice ego boost!  I stacked some smaller prints near by.  When people would stop and look at the larger prints, I would mention they were for sale and point at the smaller prints.  Invariably, they would shuffle through the prints.  The funny thing is, just because a few images were displayed, it doesn't mean they are for sale.  People didn't ask.  I had to tell them.  It felt awkward to say "They are for sale."   A few sold.  As prints were now in other offices, it was like advertising.  Word starting getting around without effort on my part and more people stopped by to look.

I let my coworkers know that I really appreciated their purchases and how important it was to me.  It still feels a bit awkward and embarrassing to sell my prints, but my friends, family and a few others continue to demonstrate to me that they value and enjoy my work.

Smoke Prints

What a week it has been.!  I've been struggling at work with a project that involves many departments, people and pieces of equipment.  We've had more than a couple failures that have required a lot of document revisions.  Late yesterday we were able to push through and get two documents approved and in use.  In addition, I sold 7 prints!  I was tired.  It was a good way to end the week.

A couple weeks ago, I took a week long vacation.  We left home and just got out of our environment.  It was a nice break from the routine.  I decided to start a photo project during this time off.  I had an idea for smoke images.  I fooled around with this a while back after seeing some images on Flickr.  Most of my previous edits had been in color and I wanted to work solely in black and white this time.

Shooting

Basically I shot with a couple of flashes against a black background.  (To get the white background, the image is inverted.)  To reduce noise in the background, I tried to keep as much light off the background as possible.  I used some matboard taped to the flashes to control direction of light.  I shot in manual using my cameras highest sync speed to reduce ambient light and aperture to conrol light from the flashes on the smoke.  Flashes were triggered with radio syncs.  The camera was on a tripod and I used a cable release.  I shot out in my garage in the evening.  I had a small light to provide a little ambient light so I wasn't stumbling around and a small flashlight to watch the smoke - it helped to anticipate when something interesting was about to happen. 

Editing

The workflow was important in getting a consistent look across all images.  The process of shooting and editing these images took a while to figure out.  The thing that was interesting to me is how the editing process evolved several times in a short period.  This was the first time I really used Lightroom to make some initial edits before bringing into Photoshop to perform the bulk of the editing process.  All images were editing individually in Photoshop.  I saved time in Photoshop by creating some actions to set up each image with all of the layers needed.  After processing about half the images, I made a couple changes to the editing process.  I went back and re-processed the first half.  After finishing up all the images and making some initial prints, I went back and re-processed all images again to clean up some background noise issues. 

Figure 1 below show a screen grab of one of the Levels layers which was used to whiten the whites and in some cases, blow out the whites.  You can see how I've adjusted the levels to blow out background.

Figure 1

In Figure 2, I've added another Levels layer to help identifiy noise in the background.  You can see how far over I've pulled the black tab and the resultant background noise.  I cleaned up the noise the then hid or deleted the Levels 2 layer - It was really only meant to help with the editing proces.

Figure 2

Printing

I made a couple individual 10x15 prints from Photoshop, but my version of Photoshop doesn't automate print packages.  I wanted to try and utilize the benefits on my printers roll paper and set up a couple of custom print packages in Lightroom.  Luckily, Lightroom can use my custom B&W printer profile.  One thing I don't care for in Lightroom print packages, is all the images in the set are the same.  No way to print out differnt images in one print package.  (There is a program called Qimage that is supposed to be really good for printing packages, but I've never tried it.)

Finishing

We have a Logan mat cutter.  One thing I learned when production mat cutting is to make multiple cuts on the same stop.  For example, when cutting 8x10 mats, make all the 10" cuts on your mats and your backing materials so the 10" sides on all materials are the same.  Then adjust stop to 8" and then make all your 8" cuts on mats and backing materials.  When you stack your mat against your backing, the outter dimensions should be very close.  Before I figured this out, the dimensions of my mats and backing were just different enough to be annoying and I tossed many mats because it looked sloppy. 

I matted these prints with a black core white mat.  That black core really makes the images pop off.  Not to brag or anything, but I think these images look great!  This was a fun project.

http://www.earlharamaki.com/

Tripod

I bought my tripod a couple years ago.  It is a Giottos GB4180 tripod with a Really Right Stuff BH-55 ballhead.  The legs were something like $120 and the ballhead with the panning clamp is $575.  So I have a good chunck of change in my tripod.  The legs are aluminum.  The overall length of the tripod when closed down is about 32" so it's not a compact tripod by any means.  Extends to about 66".  My bathroom scale tells me that this combo weighs about 9 pounds.  The tripod came with a nice storage bag which is too bulky to hike with.  It also came with a sling style carrying strap for the tripod which does make hiking longer distances easier.  Most of my pictures involve hiking around a bit, walking through street. Carrying this big thing is a bit of a hassle. In the Winter, the aluminum gets very cold, too cold to carry with bare hands.

For reference, I'm about 5'10.  In the picture below I have the legs fully extended.  With a camera on top, I can't see through the viewfinder without getting up on tip toes.  At first it was nice to take pictures from tripod without having to hunch over.  Over time, I've found most of the pictures I like are made with the tripod very close to the subject or to the ground so a tripod that exteneded to this height was unneccessary.

I will probably sell this tripod and ballhead. I bought this combo after reading a tripod article by Thom Hogan on the Really Right Stuff website. I thought this would be "the one" tripod.  I don't think I agree with his conclusions.  I think any tripod is better than no tripod and the tripod you're willing to carry around will be used more than a very nice tripod that you find a hassle to carry.  After much use, I realize that it doesn't really fit my needs.  I want something shorter, lighter, easier to carry.