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Table of Contents
Books
August is not my favorite month for landscape photography in Ohio.
It's generally hot and humid, with hazy skies. Most gardens are
past their peak blooming period, and the overriding color in the
landscape is green. There are plenty of "macro" subjects
like dragonflies, butterflies and mushrooms to be found, but mosquitoes
and deer flies coupled with the heat and high humidity can provide
quite an endurance test for the outdoor photographer. So I was happy
to trade cameras for computer keyboard in my air-conditioned basement
office for much of August and September, writing captions for the
280 photographs that will be reproduced in The Floridas,
my 200-page book on the natural and historical landscapes of the
Sunshine State, with text by Clay Henderson, one of Florida's foremost
conservationists. Browntrout will release The Floridas in
late November. More information may be obtained from:
http://www.browntrout.com/books/product.asp?MGID=208&IID=5704
 I'm
also working on The National Road, a book about the 600-mile
highway, built in 1811-1846 from Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia,
Illinois, and the only major road in the United States funded and
built by the Federal Government. Along the old National Road are
unique stone bridges, taverns and inns, tollhouses, old motels and
gas stations, battlefields, mileposts, and other reminders of traveling
in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I plan to complete
the photography and writing for the book next year, so that The
National Road can be published in 2007.
Finally, I'm wrapping up the photography for Backroads Of Ohio,
which will be released by Voyageur Press in 2006. My Ohio photographs
will be paired with text by Ohio travel writer Miriam Carey. Backroads
Of Ohio, part of a new Voyageur Press book series, will describe
25-30 scenic and historic drives throughout the Buckeye State. I've
made several trips around Ohio this year to gather new images for
this book, and will be continuing my quest during the remainder
of 2005. Unlike my previous books, in which most of the photographs
were produced using 4x5-inch, 6x8cm and 35mm film cameras, many
of the images in Backroads Of Ohio will be digital photographs
taken with Fuji S2 Pro and my new Fuji S3 Pro and Nikon D2X digital
cameras.
Jim Roetzel and I will sign copies of our new book, Cuyahoga
Valley National Park, at two of our favorite independent booksellers
on Saturday, November 12, 2005. From 1:00pm to 3:00pm we'll be at
the Blue Heron Bookstore, 1593 Main Street, Peninsula, in
the heart of the Cuyahoga Valley. Phone: (330)-657-2575. From 4:00pm
to 6:00pm we'll be at The Learned Owl, 204 N. Main Street, Hudson.
Phone: (330)-653-2252.
 WORKSHOPS
, SEMINARS & SLIDE PROGRAMS
The Cuyahoga Valley Photographic Society will host my program,
Adventures In Book Publishing - 2005, at the Happy Days Visitor
Center on Rte. 303 in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park on Thursday,
November 17 at 7:00 pm. The presentation will focus on my five books
published during 2005: Our Ohio (Voyageur Press), The
Art Of Garden Photography (Timber Press), Paradise In The
City: Cleveland Botanical Garden (Orange Frazer Press),
Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Twin Lights Publishers), and
The Floridas (Browntrout Publishers).
I will be returning to Longwood Gardens in eastern Pennsylvania
on April 22-23, 2006 to conduct a one-day Digital Garden Photography
Seminar (April 22) and a one-day Digital Garden Photography Workshop
(April 23) at one of America's largest and most spectacular public
gardens. The seminar will provide an intensive classroom session
on photographing gardens using digital cameras, based on my book,
The Art of Garden Photography. The workshop, which will be
limited to fifteen participants, will include a morning of photography
at Longwood followed by an afternoon of reviews and critiques of
participants' digital photographs, plus some advanced digital topics.
Contact Angela Williamson at awilliamson@longwoodgardens.org
or call her at (610)-388-1000/ext 543 for more information.
2006 CALENDARS
Browntrout has released my three Ohio calendars for 2006: Wild
& Scenic Ohio, Ohio Places and Ohio Nature. The calendars
may be purchased from Borders and other booksellers, as well as
from Browntrout at: www.browntrout.com
You can read more about the calendars here:
http://www.ianadamsphotography.com/calendar/2004_calendar.htm
TRAVELS WITH FUJI
My adopted tabby cat, Fuji (he adopted me) continues to enrich
my life and provide me with endless opportunities for feline photography
and cat watching when I'm working at home. Travel away from home,
however, is an activity that Fuji, like most territorial cats, loathes.
For local trips, such as his yearly checkup by the vet, I purchased
a travel cage for Fuji. Buying the cage was easy, but getting him
into it is another story. He associates the cage with unfamiliar
cats and dogs in the vet's office, plus the discomfort of probing
fingers and having to endure the discomfort of a thermometer being
inserted into a very private place. I doubt that a live mouse would
tempt him into the cage voluntarily, and his ability to squirm out
of my grip makes it a challenge, even with my considerable weight
advantage, to "muscle" him into the travel cage without
suffering injury from his sharp claws or dental weaponry. A pair
of old gloves helps to provide me with temporary body armor while
we tussle in this annual wrestling match.
 During
brief, overnight photography or workshop trips Fuji is content to
be left on his own, provided he has an ample supply of Iams and
fresh water and a clean litter box. Cat's sleep up to 20 hours each
day, and Fuji takes advantage of my absence to catch up on his beauty
rest or simply watch the world go by from the comfort of the penthouse
of his cat "motel" near my living room window. For longer
trips, a neighbor's teenage daughter, Devin, helps out by visiting
twice a day to feed Fuji, clean his litter box, and play with him
for a few minutes.
Since Fuji moved in with me in June, 2004 I've made a couple of
driving trips to Florida to visit my parents near Daytona Beach
and complete the photography for The Floridas, my new book
on the landscapes of the Sunshine State. Fuji has accompanied me,
albeit very reluctantly, on these drives to and from Florida, so
that while I'm out taking photographs he can enjoy the sun and the
company of my parents, who dote on him as much as I do. Fuji knows
that something is amiss when I start piling up camera gear, suitcases
and clothes in the living room, and he gets quite agitated when
I struggle to maneuver his carpeted cat motel through the kitchen
door and into the back seat of my Toyota 4Runner, where it just
fits across the back seat. Once the 4Runner is fully loaded I tick
off everything on my check list…except Fuji, who by this time
has figured out what's going on and has retreated to the basement,
determined to evade capture. He leads me on a merry chase around
storage shelves and in and out of empty equipment boxes before I
finally manage to grab him and carry him, meowing with indignation,
to the 4Runner. He dives for cover under the back seat, and we head
south on I-77.
It's just under 1000 miles to Edgewater, Florida, and it usually
takes me about 18 hours spread over a day and a half. There's no
way that I'm going to confine Fuji to a small cage for 18 hours,
so he's free to wander around the interior of the 4Runner, except
that he's not allowed in the driver's seat. For the first hour he
sits on the console or in the front passenger seat, hyperventilating
and mewing with discomfort. I stroke him behind the ears and eventually
he calms down, and occasionally even appears to take an interest
in the scenery we pass by, though for the most part he sleeps on
the back seat in his cat motel or on the trunk cover where I lay
my clothes, covered with a car blanket. I put his litter box on
the floor under the back seat, and a little Iams and water in dishes
on the floor under the front passenger seat, but Fuji will not eat,
drink, pee or poop in the 4Runner. He waits until we check into
a motel room, where he wolfs down some Iams and happily investigates
every corner for bugs or other potential prey or play items.
Fuji loves Florida. My folks live in a small house on a lake about
a half-mile from the Indian River near New Smyrna. There is a constant
procession of songbirds, ducks, butterflies, lizards, and other
critters near the patio, where we place Fuji's cat motel next to
the window overlooking the lake. His life is a feline funfest until
it's time to pack up and head north, back to Ohio.
On the drive home this spring, we spent the night in a motel near
I-77 in Princeton, West Virginia. In the morning, Fuji hid under
the king-sized bed when I tried to grab him, and no amount of coaxing
would bring him out. He was hunkered down on the floor under the
large wooden headboard along the wall, and I finally had to move
the bed away from the wall in order to reach him. As I moved the
bed, the heavy wooden headboard came off the wall and crashed to
the floor. Convinced that I had inadvertently decapitated my cat,
I couldn't bear to look for several seconds, until I heard a plaintive
"meow" from the other end of the bed, where an unscathed
but frightened Fuji sat on the covers. Lightning reflexes and his
gift of nine lives had prevented a terrible accident.
Further north in West Virginia I lost Fuji in the 4Runner. Usually
he sleeps on the back seat or on the pile of clothes I lay on the
trunk cover. When I call his name, he jumps up on the console to
check me out and survey the scene. But this time he failed to appear
after several minutes. Finally I pulled over into a rest area to
take a closer look. I had opened the driver's window on three occasions
to pay the toll on the West Virgina Turnpike, but surely I would
have spotted him if he had tried to sneak out of the window.
I looked carefully under the front seats and along the back seat.
No sign of him. Nor was he hidden among the clothes on the trunk
cover. I lifted the tailgate, shoved the clothes onto the back seat,
and rolled back the trunk cover. Still no Fuji. Carefully I began
to lift out suitcases, camera bags, tripods and other stuff packed
tightly in the trunk. Eventually I spied a small round ball of brown
and white fur curled up on the floor of the trunk between two camera
bags. "Meeow" said the round furball. In an effort to
escape the noise and vibration of the vehicle, Fuji had managed
to sneak under the trunk cover and burrow down into the pile of
luggage stacked in the back of the 4Runner. A couple of hours later
we were back in Cuyahoga Falls and Fuji was gleefully tearing around
the house investigating familiar haunts and favorite places. It
was good to be home.
TECHNICAL TIPS
PhotoRescue
 During
the summer, I photographed a garden for a new client using my Fuji
S3 Pro camera. A couple of days later, thinking that I had transferred
the digital garden photographs to my PC from the 640 mB Delkin compact
flash card I had used during the shoot, I reformatted the card in
the Fuji S3 Pro. The next day I realized that I had not,
in fact, transferred the images…a middle-aged moment! How could
I recover the files?
Fortunately, reformatting a compact flash card does not remove
the digital files, but simply the file addresses; the files
are not actually deleted until new photographs are written over
the old files. I was able to use PhotoRescue, an inexpensive file
recovery program from Data Rescue (www.datarescue.com),
to recover the garden photographs. You can test PhotoRescue by downloading
it (Windows and Mac are supported) from the Data Rescue website
and running the program to make sure it can recover the "lost"
files on your flash card. However, in order to save the files
that are displayed by PhotoRescue, you'll need to purchase the software
for $29. Sooner or later you may make the same mistake, so investing
$29 in this fine product is a no-brainer!
Fuji S3 Pro And Nikon D2X Digital SLR Cameras
During February I purchased the new Fuji S3 Pro digital SLR to
replace a Fuji S2 Pro camera damaged in a canoeing accident in early
January on the Loxahatchee River in southwest Florida. Then, in
May, I bought a Nikon D2X, Nikon's new 12-megapixel flagship professional
digital camera. Both cameras offer an impressive array of features,
settings and controls, and it will take me many more months to fully
explore the capabilities of these two state-of-the-art digital SLR
cameras. (Thom Hogan's new ebook on the Nikon D2x is over 700 pages
long!)
In-depth reviews of the Fuji S3 Pro and Nikon D2X are available
on several websites, including Thom Hogan: www.bythom.com,
Digital Photography Review: www.dpreview.com,
and Steve's Digicams: www.steves-digicams.com.
These websites provide detailed specifications, operational reviews,
reams of test charts and comparisons enough for the most dedicated
pixel peeper. What I would like to add to these extensive reviews
are a few observations based on using each camera in the field over
the past few months, from the perspective of a landscape photographer.
The resolution of a digital camera is an important
attribute for landscape photography. I enjoy making Epson Ultrachrome
inkjet prints, occasionally up to 30x40 or 40x50 inches, and many
of my landscape images are reproduced full-page or double-page in
books, calendars, and large posters. The Nikon D2X produces a 12.2
megapixel uninterpolated digital file; the Fuji S3 Pro combines
two 6.2 megapixel arrays and interpolates the results to produce
a 12.3 megapixel digital file. For multimedia displays (e.g. Powerpoint,
website graphics) and inkjet prints up to 13x19-inches I cannot
discern any difference in resolution between the two cameras, even
using a 6X loupe to examine test prints. At a print size of 24x36-inches,
the Nikon D2X produces slightly more edge detail, but you need to
look closely at the prints, side by side, in order to see it. On
the other hand, a 24x36-inch print made from a 6x8cm Fujichrome
Velvia color transparency from my Fuji GX680 view camera (almost
twice the size of most 6x4.5cm medium format cameras) scanned on
my Minolta DiMage Scan Multi Pro shows significantly more edge detail
than a similar-sized print made from a 12 megapixel file from either
the Fuji S3 Pro or the Nikon D2X. The Nikon D2X wins the resolution
contest, but only by a hair. Both of these cameras are capable
of outresolving a scanned 35mm color transparency by a significant
margin. Neither is capable of outresolving a scanned 6x8cm
or 4x5-inch color transparency.
The dynamic range is the extent of the tonal range that can be recorded by the camera's digital sensor, measured in f-stops. Slide film can record about 5 f-stops, and most digital SLR cameras can provide 6-7 f-stops of usable detail, a significant increase compared to film. Dynamic range is important when photographing contrasty scenes, and especially critical for black-and-white photography and for wedding photographers, who need to hold detail in white bridal dresses juxtaposed against black tuxedos. The Fuji S2 Pro has long been a favorite digital camera of wedding photographers, coupling high resolution with warm, pleasing color reproduction and wide dynamic range. The Fuji S3 Pro utilizes some unique digital sensor technology to extend the dynamic range by an additional 1-2 f-stops. One 6 megapixel sensor array records the basic image, and another 6 megapixel array that is less sensitive to light records extra tonal information from the highlights in the scene. Setting the dynamic range to Wide1 or Wide 2 uses the extra highlight information to improve the dynamic range by 1-2 f-stops.
Since I don't shoot weddings or black-and-white photographs, and
generally avoid photographing high-contrast landscape subjects in
color, other than a few sunrises and sunsets, the expanded dynamic
range feature of the Fuji S3 Pro is of limited interest - I would
gladly exchange it for more resolution. Nor is the dynamic range
of the Nikon D2X inadequate for any of my needs, though the Fuji
S3 Pro edges out the Nikon D2X in this area, based on my test comparisons.
Color rendition is clearly an important consideration in
digital landscape photography, just as it is with film. Both the
Nikon D2X and the Fuji S3 Pro offer the ability to use Adobe RGB
(1998) as the color space, plus the ability to adjust the saturation
of the color to some extent. I agree with Thom Hogan's reviews,
which indicate that the Nikon D2X produces more accurate, albeit
slightly cool, color rendition than the Fuji S3 Pro, which produces
warmer, more saturated color. The Fuji S3 Pro also has two "film"
modes, which appear to be an attempt to render neutral skin tones
(Film1) or more saturated, Velvia-like color for nature and other
landscapes (Film2). Of course, the user is free to fine-tune the
color using Photoshop or another image editor on the computer. I
would rate this area as a draw, depending on one's color preferences.
Noise is the digital equivalent of film grain. At lower
sensitivity settings, from 100 to 400, both the Nikon D2X and the
Fuji S3 Pro are essentially noise-free. 95% of my landscape photographs
are taken with the sensitivity set to 100, so noise is no problem
for me with either camera. Other reviews suggest that at higher
sensitivities, such as 800 to 3200, the Fuji S3 Pro exhibits a trace
less noise than the Nikon D2X. I can't comment, since I never use
sensitivity settings higher than 400.
The quality of the viewfinder is of critical importance
to me as a landscape photographer. I find the viewfinders of most
point-and-shoot digital cameras to be essentially useless, since
they often display only 60-70% of the actual coverage of the camera's
sensor and provide an image which is far too small and dim for focusing
the camera manually, which is usually my preference in order to
optimize depth-of-field. Nor am I able to judge focus or compose
on the LCD monitor on the back of the camera, especially in bright
light. The viewfinder of the Fuji S3 Pro, unchanged from the S2
Pro, displays 95% of the horizontal image and 93% of the vertical
image, which means that you don't see about 12% of the final recorded
image. The viewfinder display is reasonably bright, but doesn't
approach the brightness of a full-frame 35mm film camera's viewfinder,
such as that of my Nikon F100. The Nikon D2X displays 100% of the
final recorded image in both dimensions, and offers a bright, crisp,
magnified viewfinder display that is virtually as good as my Nikon
F100. The Nikon D2X wins the viewfinder contest hands-down.
Shooting speed is an important consideration for sports
photographers, photojournalists, and some wildlife photographers.
Key factors include the number of frames per second the camera is
capable of taking, the rate at which the digital files are written
to the flash card, and the size of the buffer in the camera used
to process the files. In all these respects the Nikon D2X is a speed
demon, capable of 8 frames per second for up to 22 frames in Fine
JPEG mode or 17 frames in RAW mode at the full 12 megapixel resolution,
and the Fuji S3 Pro is a sluggard, barely capable of 2 frames per
second in Wide1 or Wide2 dynamic range and Fine JPEG or RAW mode
for a measly 3 frames. It also takes several seconds to bring up
an image on the Fuji S3's LCD monitor in playback mode. Although
this slow shooting and reviewing speed is rarely a concern to me
in landscape photography, it is disappointing that the $2000 Fuji
S3 Pro is a much slower camera than any of the lower-priced digital
SLRs from Canon and Nikon, such as the Nikon D70s or the Canon 20D.
Battery performance is also an important feature of digital
SLRs. The Fuji S3 Pro does away with the two expensive and troublesome
CR123 lithium batteries required by the S2 Pro, and a fully charged
set of 4 AA batteries will power the camera for a couple of days
of landscape photography. The performance of the Nikon D2x lithium
ion battery is absolutely superb, enough for at least a week's worth
of shooting for most of my photo trips. A hands-down win for the
Nikon D2X.
In summary, the image quality of both of these cameras is superb, but the rugged build, environmental seals and blazing speed of the Nikon D2X place it in a class by itself. I could function as a landscape photographer with either of these fine cameras, and you must judge whether the additional price premium of the D2X over the S3 Pro, around $3,000, is justified, based on your own needs and financial resources.
As I finish this newsletter, Nikon has just announced the long-awaited
D200, a 10.2 megapixel, 5 frames-per-second camera with many of
the features of the D2X, but priced at a competitive $1850, roughly
the price of the Fuji S3 Pro. Only time will tell whether the slight
dynamic range advantage of the S3 Pro will allow it to compete with
the new Nikon D200 digital SLR.
Enjoy the rest of this late but beautiful fall.
Best wishes from Ian and Fuji.
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