Links
Below are some links to other web sites related to large format photography, digital photography and web site design, and a few other topics.
Large format photography:
- Large Format Photography (dot info) - Quang-Tuan Luong's web site includes articles on getting started in LF Photography, equipment reviews and a discussion forum.
- Charles Cramer - Charles Cramer is a very talented photographer who is a master of making digital prints. He teaches classes at Calypso in Santa Clara, California.
- View Camera Magazine - A wonderful high quality glossy magazine for large format photographers.
Digital photography:
General Info:
- Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) - One of the best sites for reviews of digital cameras. Also has forums that receive a large number of posts.
- Bill Atkinson - Bill Atkinson was one of the original developes of the Apple compluter and has been a poineer of the use of Photoshop in the printing of digital images.
- RetouchPRO - A great resource to help you create digital photo-based art. A great place to find Photoshop actions for creating effects such as photo frames and "artsy" photo manipulations.
- CMOS/CCD Sensor Cleaning - Website by Nicholas R describing how to clean a digital camera sensor.
Stitching. "Stitching" refers to the creation of a image by taking multiple photos arranged in a matrix and then combining, or "stitching", them into a single image. If the resulting image is siginificantly longer in the horizontal direction then the image is referred to as a panorama. If the resulting image is close to the proportions of that of a a single image then you have effectively increased the number of pixels in an image. This technique allow the creation of 100 megapixel images using a digtal camera containing less than 10 megapixels.
- PanoTools ( path.unimelb.edu.au/~dersch ) - Helmut Dersch's web site, the creator of PanoTools which the best program for stitching digital images. PanoTools by itself is difficult to learn so I recommend that you get one of the Graphical User Interfaces (GUI's) that is available for PanoTools. One is called PTgui and the other is PTAssembler. Both offer nearly identical functionality but the interfaces are different so choosing is a matter of personal taste. Both offer demos that you can download and try out.
- PTgui ( ptgui.com) - One of the GUI's for PanoTools.
- PTAssembler ( tawbaware.com/ptasmblr.htm ) - One of the GUI's for PanoTools. The creator of this program, Max Lyons, has an awesome gallery of stitched images.
- Yahoo PanoTools Group - Discussion forum for all things related to PanoTools.
- caldwellphotographic.com - Brian Caldwell's site has what I consider to be the best utorial on creating a stitched image. Brian also has another tutorial on correcting lens distortions. This is a topic that deserves more study so I list more links on this below.
- epaperpress.com - Thomas Niemann's site has a PanoTools tutorial but the best part of his site is a technique for calculating lens distortions. Go to Panorama Tools -> Calibration -> Lens Distortion.
Imaging software
- FDRExposer - One of the potential advantages of digital imaging is the possibility of combining two images - one underexposed and one overexposed - to create one image with greatly increased dynamic range. Such tools are often tagged as creating High Dynamic Range (HDR) images. One of the programs that seem to have the most potential in this area is FDRExposer. This program written by Andreas Schömann.
Photographic Services:
- Calypso Imaging (calypsoinc.com) - This is the lab I use for my Light Jet prints. Located in Santa Clara, California.
A few other photography related sites:
- photo.net - A site where people contribute images to be viewed and reviewed by others.
- The Light and Shadow Camera Club of San Jose, of which I am a member, can be found for the time being at http://home.earthlink.net/~gorapeterson/lightandshadow/. A new club web site is being developed and should go online in Q1 2004. Light and Shadow is a member of the Central Coast Counties Camera Club Council (6C), which covers the regions around San Jose, California, USA.
- Picture This - This web site by Carol Leigh has a lot of info on photographing in California. Of particular value are the Wildflower hotsheet and the Fall foliage hotsheet. Carol also lead photo tours around California and writes a newsletter describing things to photograph in California..
Web Site Design:
- meyerweb.com - The brilliant code for the navigation bar (see left side of my web site) comes from Eric Meyer's web site.
- glish.com/css - Contains great examples multi-column layout using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Created by Eric Costello.
- Web Pages That Suck - A web site with a strange name but one that espouses the same web design principles that I do: keep it simple and obvious.