November Catch up

It has been almost 5 months since my last blog, and my photography has taken a turn for the good. One of my most recent pictures have gotten great feedback from friends and family. I took to the beach a few days ago to get pictures of the large waves on Lake Michigan do to Hurricane Sandy, however, the pictures that turned out had nothing to do with the waves. One example is the beach front picture, taken with my 100mm lens:

 However, another photo taken made me realize something. That the computer screen highly affects how I edit my photo, and when I print that photo, it's always darker. I did a bit of research, and I don't know why it never hit a bell, that my TV screen (I use for a computer monitor) was set on vivid and high brightness. It shows everything brighter than normal, and was done so for gaming. Here is the photo, was also taken with my 100mm lens:



After additional research, I was able to find two products that would help with this coloring issue. One for the screen, and one for the colors, exposure, and white balance. The first one I recently purchased (yesterday actually) and is called: Colorchecker Passport from x-rite (http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1257). This product saves time in photo processing big time, and allows you to get true color in your photos. Since I shoot in a RAW format, some coloring is lost, but is able to be retrieved if you have the correct color profile for your images. This product does that, and helps big time. For a hundred bucks, a great tool to have and works for portraits and landscapes.

The other product that is out of my budget currently, is the ColorMunki from x-rite (http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?id=1115) and comes in at 500 dollars currently. This is a device that you would hang on your screen and with the magic of software and hardware, it is able to calibrate your screen. You are then able to calibrate your printer with it, making your screen and printer have the same calibration. This allows a "what you see on your screen, is what you get on your printer" effect. The setup is minutes, and if you print your photos a lot, or would want to, this could save you ink and paper over time as you don't need to print and edit, print and edit, and print and edit to find the correct settings.

I've also done some flower photography with my 50mm lens, which acts as a 70mm lens due to not having a full body camera. Here is a photostream of those:

http://outsidethepicture.blogspot.com/2012/11/flowers.html

Let me know what you thought about the images, any feedback on the products or tips for them are appreciated.