Initial Printer Research

Looks like there are three 13x19 large format printers on the market.

1. Epson - Stylus Photo R1800
   
2. Canon - Pixma Pro9000 - $449.99 at newegg.
   
3. HP - Photosmart 8750
   

The canon is the fastest and seems to be the most liked. The Epson has a cool CD/DVD print option for printing directly on Discs that are coated for printing. The HP and Epson seem to be better for B&W printing.

Time goes by

Time sure does fly. I've been taking pictures and doing research on post processing images.

Post Processing Items I've been experimenting with

• White Balance
• Camera - using the custom white balance function from the menu. I find it produces much better images than the presets.
• Post Production in Digital Photography Professional (DPP) - Click white balance with a bit of tuning usually gets everything properly balanced.
• Histogram (brightness/contrast)
  
• Camera - using the histogram to make sure I've gotten a proper exposure. I use it in RGB mode. If there is a white wall in the image then there will be a part of the histogram where the RGB components all peak at the same point. If they don't, then I know I don't have the correct WB set.
• Post Production - In DPP I adjust the histogram to get the brightness/contrast set. I also find myself editing the red channel alot to remove a color cast. I swear my camera has a tendency to take red pictures.
• Noise Reduction
• Post Production - I've played around with Noise Ninja, Neat Image, and Noiseware. I haven't decided which one I like the best so for now I'm going to keep evaulating them. I need to take a series of high noise pictures and do a side by side comparison and write up a quick article regarding my findings.
• Sharpening
• Camera - I'm not sure what to do here, I had the camera in "Standard" mode which has a sharpness value of "3" set. Now, I changed it to faithful as I plan on sharpening my images post process. I need to do some side by side experiments to see what is best.
• Post Production - I've been using Unsharp Mask (USM), High pass filter, Embross and other photoshop & paint shop pro tricks to learn to sharpen images. Still lots to learn here. I've read (and agree with) that you should sharpen last.
  
• Color Saturation
• Post Production - Ummm, I've been turning this up one notch (sometimes two) to get more color saturation in DPP. But I have no basis other than how I think it looks to know if I'm doing it right. Lots more reading to do on this.
• Enlargments
  
• Post Production - not that I need it, but I stumbled upon it so I read about it. Seems like there are a number of tools (like genuine fractals) that allow you to do large 500ish percent enlargments and still get good prints. So it seems like printing large 20x14 prints (or larger) would be something I could do if I wanted to. Definately something to try in the future.

There are a bunch more things to learn about post processing, but that will take more time.

I did a few other interesting things recently too. I tested both my lenses for image sharpness and focus accuracy. I set up three 9 volt batteries about 2 inches apart each about 2 inches deeper from each other. I focused on the middle battery and took pictures at all focal lengths for both my lenses. Every picture exept for one focused correctly, and the 2nd try worked. So, I guess I learned that I don't have any front/back focusing issues and that I need to look at what the Autofocusing system is doing, vs just trusting it.

I also took pictures of the batteries at each aperture to see how it effects image quality. Both lenses are soft at f/2.8, which I knew from the reviews. I'm going to try to avoid f/2.8 unless I'm at iso 1600 and need the extra light to get the shot.

Recent photo ops.

• 4 year old birthday party at an gym. Very active 4 year old jumping on stuff and running crazy in a poorly lit gym. f2.8 ISO 1600 1/200 with flash. The pictures would be about 1.5 stops under exposed with out the flash. Would have been nice to have a f/2.0 L 135mm prime, but I'm not rich. I took some good action stopping shots that I will post soon.
  
• friends wedding. I was asked to take pictures so I did. I got a lot of nice pictures of the bride, and some nice ones of the groom too. Just not that many really good ones of them together.
  
• hockey 101 practice. Ok, so everything I read said 70-200mm for hockey. I bought a 50-150 as it is equivalent to a 80-240mm on a full frame. And if my 4 year old son was a full grown man, then the 50-150 would have been great. But he's about half the size of a full grown man so really what I need now (until he grows up) is a 100-300mm. (Sigma makes one, and I'm tempted but not quite yet). Turns out my rink is lit pretty well, I can do 1/500 at f4.0 at iso1600. Since I have a stop to give, I'm going to pick up a 1.4 teleconverter to get a little more reach.

Short term purchase list:

• 1.4x teleconverter

Long term purchase list:

• Sigma 100-300mm f/4.0 lens (sorry, can't afford the 120-300 f/2.8 lens)
• Nice new photo printer that can print big prints (what's the point of taking nice pictures if I can't print them and give them away)

Short term things to do

• Post pictures to the blog .