“Spectacular Grandeur”

”Spectacular Grandeur”
©David A. Ziser

I captured this image on the last day of our visit to Vienna, Austria.  Austria is quickly becoming one of our favorite stops on our travels this year. The grand mountain vistas, beautiful and historic cities, and sumptuous architecture makes LaDawn and I both look forward to a return visit to this part of the world.

This image speaks to the sumptuous architecture referenced above.  This image was captured at the entrance to the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna’s Museum of Fine Art.  As you can see, it is simply a stunning view.  The museum was built by the Habsburgs, the ruling monarchy at the time.  The Habsburgs needed a place built Kunsthistorisches Museum to house their art collection.  As no expense was spared during the construction process, we now have, in one of my opinion , one of the most spectacular buildings in the world to visit.

Compositionally, I like the really wide perspective I gave this image with my super wide Sigma 12-24mm lens.  The 122 degree field of view of this lens certainly lets you “take it all in”.  I also made no attempt to correct the super wide perspective.  I feel it’s the wide angle perspective that lends to the sense of awe one feels viewing this image.

Postproduction in Lightroom 5 gave the image it’s almost HDR look. I increased Vibrance and Clarity, and reduced Highlights to get to my final result.  Hope you like it.

Camera specs: Canon 5D Mark III fitted with Sigma 12 – 24 mm lens lens at 12mm, F4.5 at 1/30 second, ISO 6400.  Enjoy!  -David

Friday Wrap Up: Great New Book Ideas; Inkjet Issues Solved; Help Wanted; and Agave Update

Good Morning Everybody,

We put quite a few miles on the rental car yesterday traveling from Orlando over to Oldsmar near Tampa and then down to Sarasota and back - only about 275 miles. Here are the quick highlights of yesterday's trip.

Visit To Kelby Media World Headquarters

That was our first stop yesterday. It was fun to catch up with many of the Kelby Media crew. Kathy gave us a tour of the new facilities and they are phenomenal, especially the video department. They now have six sets in which they shoot everything from D-Town [link] to Photoshop User TV [link] and everything in-between.

We had a nice lunch with Scott and Dave and discussed new book plans. Both of them had some great ideas. Not to let the "cat out of the bag" or anything but the thrust of the new book is going to be lighting. Lighting brides and groom, couples, just about anybody anytime, anyplace, with any camera or lens. What do you think? I'm stoked! I'll provide more details as things develop.

We also discussed a few ideas for an upcoming series of Kelby Training videos. I thinks the first video will be on photographing, posing, lighting for an engagement couple. We're kicking around a few other ideas too. Again, I'll keep you posted.

Heading To LexJet - Inkjet Issues Solved!

Our next stop was to Sarasota where I wanted to catch up with my buds at LexJet. I'll tell ya' they are the nicest people. Tom and Kelly, my rep who I finally got to meet for the first time in person, gave us a tour of all the new products and some great ideas in how we could use them in my fine art endeavors.

For those of you doing any printing on canvas, Kelly recommended their new Sunset Select Matte Canvas at only $.90 sq.ft. That's like half the cost of their other canvases and it's more durable and has a much brighter base than regular canvas media.

Another highlight of the visit was meeting Adam, LexJet's resident inkjet printing guru. I've mentioned here at DPT that we put in Canon's iPF 8100 printer about a year ago and we LOVE it. It's fast and puts out beautiful prints. Our problem was all the profiles we downloaded from Lexjet just didn't work with QImage, the software we use to drive the Canon printer. We always figured out a work-a-round and managed to still get great output on a variety of mediums.

I raised the question with Adam and he tells me that the profiles on-line only work when printing from Photoshop. Bummer, that's not good for us since we queue up several sheets to print at one time.

But, Adam had the easy solution. Just print out some test images from sample TIFFs he would email me and send them to him. Using LexJet's gazillion dollar profile making hardware and software he would gladly make custom profiles for me. In fact LexJet offers the service to any of their customers at NO charge. Don't you love great customer service? That's why I love those guys - if it's Inkjet, call LexJet!! [link].

Update On Blue Agave

Hey everybody, thanks for the nice remarks on the Blue Agave post yesterday. Just to clarify two points that were raised. I use Imagekind.com to host several of my fine art images. Here is the link. They do a good job, you name your own prices and the cost is only $99/yr.

The other question that came up was as to the sharpness of the 12-24mm lens. I think my 12-24mm lens is plenty sharp. I had read years ago before I purchased it that some folks, not many, had a problem with the sharpness of the early production models. They simply exchanged them.

My experience with Sigma lens has always been quite positive. I think they make the best super wide angle lenses you can get. In fact, they make the THE widest angle lenses you can get. You've seen that in the variety of images I've posted that were taken with the 12-24mm and their brand new 8-16mm for APS sized sensor cameras like the Canon 7D. What can I say, I’m a BIG fan.

Still Looking For Help For Imaging USA

Earlier this week, I posted that I was presenting to a large audience in about 10 days at Imaging USA and put out a call for help setting up for the program. LaDawn got a few responses but could still use another hand or two. If you plan to be at Imaging USA and can help, yes-goodies included, contact LaDawn at laDawn@Ziser.com and she can give you the times and details.

One For The Road – Good Training, Great Price

I just got a note from my good friends at Friday Photo School.  I did a program for them a few months ago that went great.  Well, they have bundled my program with two more from Rick Ferro and Bill Innes.

Here is the lowdown:

• Preparing Yourself for Excellent Wedding and Portrait Images with William Innes

• Top Ten Posing Tips with Rick Ferro

• Lighting, Lenses, and Locations: Exciting Bridal Portraits with David Ziser

$43 for 4.5 hours of “live training” – what a deal!

Here is the link right here.

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Hey gang, that's it for me today. The sun has finally come out after four days in Orlando and I think LaDawn and I are going to soak up a few rays.

How about I see you next week, same time, same station. Have a great weekend and I'll see you then.

Adios, David

Which Lens - Canon 10-22mm or Sigma 12-24mm?

How wide do you need to go - that is the question. Not exactly Shakespeare, but the burning question to how to make the right choice. Since I've been posting images taken with the Sigma 12-24mm lens lately, our readers have been raising the question about which of the two lens to buy. I think the wide angle lens choice discussion is pertinent to what we do here so here goes.

The widest angle lens you can get for the Canon 40D is the 10-22mm. That translates up to a 16-35mm for a full frame digital 35mm camera so we get a 108 degree field of view. Sigma's 12-24mm lens on the Canon 40D would be about a 95 degree field of view. On the Nikon side you can get a 12-24mm lens for their D200 and D300. This lens would give the same field of view as the Sigma lens on the Nikon cameras.

OK, now things get a bit more interesting because now we have two full frame camera choices both Canon and Nikon along with the each company's new APS size chip cameras (Canon 40D and D300.) In the APS size chip cameras, Canon has the widest with their 10-22mm on the 40D - I own it, I love it. You can't get any wider perspective on this type camera.

If I were shooting Nikon and thinking of both their D300 and D3 I might opt for the 12-24mm Sigma, since it fits both cameras and Nikon doesn't have a wider variation lens for their D300. On the Canon side I love the Canon 5D/Sigma 12-24mm lens combo. Until Nikon introduced their D3 just recently, this was the widest angle camera/lens combo on the planet.

The bottom line for me was to get the Canon 10-22mm lens for my 40D. Since I opted for the 5D as well, I also own the Sigma 12-24mm lens. Final, final bottom line - Canon still makes the widest angle camera/lens combo for the APS based cameras - read 40D, 30D, 20D but on the full frame digitals, you now have two camera choices with the Sigma. Dare I mention the Sigma lens is about $50 less for the Nikon version. In any event, 122 degrees of view is unbelievably wide. Just be sure you don't turn your "people" subjects into Mr. or Ms. Gumby.