You do not have to be a magician to put the moon where you want it in your pictures.

In this article, I am going to reveal how you can use software to predict the exact moonrise time, direction, angles and phases. You can use this information, in combination with a simple Google Earth trick, to enhance your composition with a celestial display de extraordinaire.

In the fascinating world of technology, nothing is ever static. Once more, a company from the San Francisco Bay area set out to change the world forever.

Unified Color have just released new software, HDR PhotoStudio, which promises to satisfy color fanatics and bring HDR to the masses. Unified Color invited me to review the software and write an honest review.

As always, I will update this page as new updates become available and I will try to answer your questions if I can.

I found a better way to back up my photographs in the field.

Since laptops are too heavy to carry around all day, I used to rely on image tanks for backup outdoors. That strategy works very well for me, but it did lack the capability of viewing images. That is where expensive image tanks with RAW viewer such as the Epson P6000 come in. Since the P6000 costs about $600 at the time of this writing and this photographer is always looking for better deals, I never bought one.

I ended up carrying my laptop on many trips so that I could connect to the internet and manage my websites. Outside, I simply swapped flash memory cards and back in the hotel room, I ran backups to my laptop and my image tank. I carry the image tank into the field, in case I run out of memory.

Joby flamboyantly markets the Gorillapod SLR Zoom to “serious photographers”.  Will it hold up to the promise of freeing us from our tripods or is it just another useless gadget cluttering our bag?

Let me give you the answer right now. The Gorillapod SLR Zoom is not stiff enough and therefore, sags a bit, making very long exposures difficult, if not impossible.

…are the best value for your money.

The 190XPROB Tripod legs together with any Bogen Manfrotto Tripod Head are an affordable, versatile and easy to use combination. It is my tripod of choice for all my needs.

I like this Tripod so much, that we upgraded Dani to the same one for our last Christmas trip. It makes a big difference to have a professional tripod that just works the way you would expect it to.

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Flickr is the most successful picture website with social networking aspects built right into their business model. Since some of my visitors keep asking about my Flickr Stream and my lack of presence on Flickr I decided to create my own user account and try it out.

Flickr is a fantastic repository of great photography and knowledge and I always wanted to participate in this giant community to explore new aspects of social networking. When the publishers of PicMarkr asked me to review their software I jumped on the chance to try out their software which functions as a Flickr Interface.

Update

Learn how to create stunning HDR photos from a single RAW file.

The rapid progression of camera technology and new options in Photomatix require an update to this tutorial.

Cameras are now 14-bit

When I wrote this tutorial over 1.5 years ago, most cameras were using 12-bit sensors. Camera makers have switched to higher dynamic range sensors now. I am currently using a consumer level Canon Rebel XSi which already exceeds the performance of many professional cameras of just a few years ago.

Ideally, 14-bit RAW files contain 4 times more information than 12-bit RAW files in the shadows. Realistically the gain may be limited somewhat by noise, but the noise levels also improved, leaving us with more bits to use. This much dynamic range just begs being made visible.

The picture above was taken in Central Park. The picture on the left side was processed via this HDR method. You can see a larger version here.

In the processed image you can see people outside and the fountain, while those are clipped in the unprocessed version. The histogram of the uncompensated picture, a picture processed for highlights and a picture processed for shadows is shown on the left side. The HDR is a combination of 5 images between EV-2 to EV+2.

Update:

On my first review of Photo Acute Studio I was not convinced of the Super Resolution processing. I downloaded and installed a new version (2.83) today. I wanted to use it to align 4 high ISO images (ISO 400 with the Rebel XSi) so I could stack the images and perform a noise reduction.

The good news is that the software now supports more cameras, including the Camera-Lens combination I used for these images. Unfortunately only 4 lenses are supported for the Canon 450D, but I am hoping more will come soon.

I ran another superresolution test, and this time the results are quite good. In the image below, you can see the original image (left) and the superresolution image generated from 4 hand-held images. The superresolution image clearly shows more detail and smother lines. Both images are enlarged beyond 100% resolution.

This corresponds to approximately 48 Megapixels from the Rebel XSi. If we shoot images from a tripod, we can minimze the cutting area and thus get slightly larger images.

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The crime scene is not even cold when our hero rushes the surveillance tapes to the lab where a computer geek takes the blurry images and renders a crisp image of the suspect. We are all familiar with similar scenes from TV. The process of Super-Resolution makes it possible to create detail where there was none.  Software uses small changes in each successive image of the video stream to calculate an image with much higher resolution.

Now, the same techniques are available for photographers as well.

Photo Acute Studio is the first commercially available solution for photographers offering Super-Resolution processing. The software is an image stacker that takes several images of the same scene to increase resolution, reduce noise, enhance dynamic range, increase depth of field, or remove moving subjects.

The software comes in three flavors; Portable, Standard and Professional with prices of $19, $49 and $119 respectively. The versions differ in the supported camera and lens profiles. DSLR users need to buy the Professional version while everybody else can get the Standard version.