Like Boy Scouts, photographers must prepare for the unexpected. During a recent shoot, I discovered that I was rapidly running out of fresh batteries.

I am never without sufficient NP-FW50 batteries because I always carry plenty of them. However, a perfect storm of events interrupted my usual routine of rejuvenating my batteries after I returned from a shoot.

It wasn’t a complete disaster; I had sufficient photos from early in the day so I was covered. Still, I wanted extra photos to enhance my report of the event.

No access to AC power

The event was outdoors, and I had no access to AC power for my charger. My truck was on hand, but I had no adapter that would allow me to charge NP-FW50 batteries with my vehicle.

I started to conserve my shots, trying to eke out the power in my last remaining cell. That really isn’t my style, however. Long ago, I learned to shoot anything that seemed remotely interesting and then discard any unwanted images afterward. Sometimes these random shots turn out to be my best images from an event.

That’s when inspiration struck. I had a portable power bank jump starter in my truck. It was designed to jump-start vehicles, but it featured a pair of USB ports.

Using an A6000 as a boondock Sony NP-FW50 charger

I have never used a USB cord to charge a battery in the camera. Instead, I have always used a stand-alone charger so I could continue shooting while I was charging my spare batteries.

Without a charger that could be used with a USB cord, I had no way to charge my depleted batteries. Yet I did have my Sony A6000, which I carried as a backup to my Sony A7s. Both cameras use the same NP-FW50 battery cell. Would it be possible to use the A6000 as an improvised battery charger?

Digging through the selection of cords I always carry, it didn’t take long to find a 12-inch long USB-A to USB Micro cable.

Can you charge a Sony NP-FW50 battery cell with a power bank?

I plugged the USB-A end into the Power Bank, then the Micro USB connector into the A6000. My hope of resurrecting my Sony NP-FW50 batteries shifted to disappointment when nothing happened. Frustrated, I was about to abandon this idea, but then I noticed the two USB outlets on the power bank were marked with different colors. I shifted the USB-A power cord to the second outlet marked in black. Immediately the A6000 charge lamp lit up. Apparently, the black outlet provided sufficient power to recharge an NP-FW50 battery, while the other outlet did not.

Of course, you shouldn’t go around plugging strange cables into expensive cameras. But I had no choice. Sony intended users to charge the battery in-camera with a power cord. While I cannot say for sure, I assume Sony builds their cameras with circuitry which would limit incoming voltage and amperage to a safe level.

I also felt confident that the outlets on the power bank were designed to be safe for equipment like cell phones, iPads, and video lights. It seemed tame enough to rely on the power bank to charge a battery in-camera.

Yes, a Sony A6000 can act as a battery charger

With the battery charging in the A6000, I roamed around using up the last of the juice in the battery in the A7s. When it expired, I returned to my impromptu charging station and discovered the battery in the A6000 had charged to 78 percent. I transferred the battery to my A7s and had sufficient power to cover the rest of the event.

Neither my A6000 nor my NP-FW50 batteries suffered any harm in this stunt. Still, you need to use caution if you attempt to duplicate this idea. The original charging block supplied with the Sony A6000 outputs 5v at 0.5 amps. Again, I assume the Sony engineers designed the camera not to exceed a safe voltage/amperage limit.

While I managed to get through this event, I wanted to prevent a reoccurrence in the future. I needed a charging solution that could be powered by my truck’s cigarette lighter. While looking for a car charger on Amazon, I realized there were a host of chargers that connected to AC power with a USB cable.

Planning for future Sony NP-FW50 battery emergencies

Most newer vehicles have built-in USB outlets. Nearly every older vehicle features a 12-volt cigarette outlet. Adapters which allow you to convert a cigarette lighter port to a USB outlet are readily available.

I already owned a small charger that could be powered by a micro-USB or USB-C cable. As a test, I plugged it into a USB adapter on my truck and found it charged perfectly. I intend to purchase an inexpensive charger powered by a USB cord. This charger will live in my truck, so if I experience a dying battery situation in the future, I will have the means to charge my cells while in the field.

Of course, my makeshift solution used a big 2000 amp car battery jump starter. What about the more common cell phone power banks? Could one of these have enough energy to cope with a camera or battery charger?

My Anker 1300 milliamp external battery lives in my camera bag so I can keep my cell phone topped off in the field. I plugged my USB battery charger into it and it began charging the batteries. It probably won’t be as fast and won’t have the capacity of the big 2000 Amp automotive jump starter, but now I know it can juice up my batteries.

One tried one additional test. I plugged a USB cord into my MacBook Air and attached the battery charger to it. Once again the batteries began to charge. I didn’t test this procedure long enough to determine how quickly the laptop’s internal battery would be discharged, but at least I know that my laptop can charge my camera batteries if needed.

Be prepared with a plan to keep your Sony NP-FW50 Batteries topped off

I am sure many of you already knew you could charge your camera with a power bank and that you can power a USB charger through your vehicle’s USB port. But some might have been unaware or never thought about how to go about topping off your cells without access to AC power.

If this describes you, I suggest you experiment with different charging methods to find one that works for you. That way, if you ever need to charge your batteries without an AC outlet, you’ll be ready.

Even the finest digital camera is useless without battery power. By being prepared for a sudden battery emergency, you can save yourself from missing irreplaceable shots.

Find NP-FW50 batteries on eBay!

https://ebay.us/tcXTbx

The post Sony NP-FW50 Batteries: Charge ’em without AC Power appeared first on Alphatracks.

The original design spec for the Sony Mirrorless cameras called for them to be small and exceptionally light. The heaviest part of any digital camera is the battery pack, so the Sony engineers complied by equipping the new breed of cameras with the featherweight NP-FW50 battery. Although less robust than larger camera batteries, NP-FW50 is still powerful for its size and weight.

Photographers loved the scaled-down camera bodies and their near weightlessness. They were less enthusiastic about the NP-FW50’s lack of stamina. Probably the biggest complaint against the new EVIL cameras was how quickly the battery died.

This isn’t an issue for me. Yes, the batteries go flat more rapidly than the larger, beefier cells of other digital cameras. But it takes almost no time to switch out an NP-FW50 for a fully-charged one, so this has never impacted my photography. I carry several NP-FW50s in my camera bag, and I have never found myself in a situation where lack of a fresh battery was an issue.

Where is that Battery Hiding?

That is unless I can’t find a fresh battery. Did I mention the NP-FW50 is very small? Like all minuscule things, the NP-FW50 has the ability to burrow deep into the bottom of a camera bag, hiding amidst the filters, sync-cords, lens caps, and other paraphernalia I carry in my bag. Hey, they don’t call ’em gadget bags for nothing.

I carry five or six NP-FW50s in my bag, but I quickly discovered it was a chore to find a fresh battery when I needed one. When I dug a cell from the nether regions of my bag, I couldn’t tell whether it was charged or expired. As I said, it takes mere seconds to switch batteries on a Sony Mirrorless camera. If you have to perform this maneuver several times to find a working battery, however, it is no longer quick and easy.

Amazon Strikes out

Obviously, I needed a way to find my charged batteries instantaneously. I started checking Amazon for battery cases. I found some hard cases that were designed to hold a few batteries as well as memory cards. I rejected these for two reasons. First, they only held only two, or at the most three power cells. Secondly, I already have an excellent Pelican memory card case integrated into my workflow. 

Amazon had some soft pouches designed to hold batteries but didn’t care for them. There were enough compartments for all my batteries but the NP-FW50s would swim inside the large pockets. They simply weren’t an elegant solution.

So I went searching beyond Amazon. I found exactly what I was looking for on Etsy. Yes, Etsy. 

I always thought of Etsy as a craft site, a place to find soap dishes made out of pine cones or stylish leather vests that look like they were worn by a timber baron from the 1800s. It certainly wouldn’t be a place to look for digital camera accessories.

SplashNcolor on Etsy had just what I wanted

How wrong I was. I discovered you can find nearly anything on Etsy, including used cameras and lenses. Regarding the matter at hand, I discovered a seller called SplashNcolor. 

SplashNcolor uses a 3D printer to produce elegant, perfectly designed battery magazines for the NP-FW50. This was just the item I was searching for. The compact no-nonsense clip holds four NP-FW50 cells. The cells fit tightly in their individual chambers. Each chamber has a tab that prevents the battery from sliding out into the bag or your pocket.  

When you want to extract the battery just push down on the tab and the battery pops out into your hand.

To identify whether a cell is fresh or discharged, I place freshly charged batteries in the magazine with the contacts facing away. When I take a flat battery from my camera, I insert it into the clip so the contacts are visible. This way, I can grab the clip from my bag and tell at a glance how many charged batteries are available. 

When I return home from a shoot, I can immediately tell which cells I need to recharge.

This Battery Magazine is with me on Every Shoot

The clip usually lives in a specific pocket of my backpack. Sometimes, I don’t need to carry all my gear, so I switch to my smaller messenger bag. It takes no time to transfer my battery clip and my memory card case to the messenger bag, so I don’t arrive at a shoot without the necessary accessories.

When I am in the field, I sometimes leave the camera bag in a safe location and range around with just a camera and a lens or two. While it is a little bulky, the battery magazine fits easily into the pocket of my jeans, so I know I won’t find myself a half-mile away from my gear staring at a message on my LCD informing me “battery exhausted.”

Of course, if you lose the magazine, you lose four batteries at once. With that in mind, I coughed up a couple of extra bucks to have SplashNcolor print my magazine in bright red. The default ones are printed in black, but for a slight upcharge, you can have your magazine printed in various bright colors. I figure red makes it easier to find in the gadget bag, and if it should fall out of my pocket in the woods, the shiny red color will be easy to spot.

The red-orange color also matches the Storacell AA battery holder I use.

I was a little concerned with how well the magazine would hold up. Would the 3D-printed plastic become brittle and crack? What if I dropped it on a hard surface with a full complement of batteries? Would the plastic lock tabs break over time?

My Battery Magazine has held up well

I needn’t have worried. I have toted the battery magazine around for several months in all kinds of weather conditions. I’ve dropped it and tossed heavy camera gear on top of it. It still looks brand new and there is no suggestion that the magazine will fail to provide service for many years to come.

It took me about a week to get my battery magazine because the special color had to be printed on demand. Apparently, the black ones are printed in advance and can be shipped immediately.

If you shoot with a camera that relies on the NP-FW50 battery, I cannot recommend this magazine enough. I would never want to be on a shoot without it.

Click here to buy the Sony NP-FW50 battery holder at SplashNcolor’s Etsy shop.

The post Never worry about your Sony Batteries Again with this Battery Magazine appeared first on Alphatracks.

Most Sony Alpha Mirrorlesss Cameras have the option to display Zebra Patterns in the viewfinder and rear LCD panel. And until recently, I ignored this feature.

I first encountered the Zebra option when I rented a Sony A7S about five years ago. I didn’t fully understand their function, and when I inquired about them I was told they were for videographers. At the time I was more concerned with still photos than video, so I didn’t explore the Zebra feature further. Big mistake. Zebras are extremely useful for both still and video shooters.

What are Zebra Patterns?

Essentially, photographic Zebra Patterns alert photographers to clipped highlights in the viewfinder. The camera will display a pattern of black and white stripes over any region in the image that lacks visible detail. Naturally, the Zebra patterns are only displayed in the viewfinder or rear LCD. They do not appear in the final photograph.

Photographers refer to this lack of detail as blown highlights. Despite the advances in software editing applications, no app can restore information that doesn’t exist. If your image lacks critical detail in the highlights, those areas will appear as white or gray blobs. Short of hand painting structure and elements into the highlights, there is little you can do.

Almost all digital cameras offer some form of clipped highlight warning on the rear LCD. While this is better than nothing, many cameras only alert you to a problem after an image is recorded. The classic case of locking the barn after the horses have escaped. If the highlights are blown out, you can adjust your settings and shoot another image. This is appropriate for landscapes, still-life and portraits. It isn’t very practical for action or something unrepeatable.

Typically, the warnings are only on the LCD. If you primarily use the viewfinder, you won’t have access to this information on a dSLR.

Beyond the Histogram

The average dSLR camera is equipped with a mirror and ground glass, which doesn’t offer the opportunity to add information overlays. With the introduction of mirrorless cameras, Sony engineers found they could display much more information to photographers. No longer constrained by the analog limitations of earlier cameras, designers are free to present an array of new tools in the viewfinder. Among these are live histograms and zebra patterns.

I know many photographers who rely on histograms to nail exposure. If this works for you, great. When I am capturing an event, however, I seldom have time to adjust my settings based on the histogram. I need to grab the shot and recompose for the next activity. The pace is such that I am not at liberty to spend time reacting to the histogram.

There is also the issue that most histograms will only signal that there are areas in the photo which lack highlight detail. Histograms won’t tell you which areas in the photo will have clipped highlights.

Enter Zebra Patterns. A quick glance will not only warn about clipping; but will also identify exactly where the clipping is occurring. I find that invaluable.

Sometimes I don’t care if an area of the photo contains blown highlights. An example would be a night scene with bright lights in the background. Other times I don’t mind if clouds lose highlight detail. The important thing is the Zebra stripes show me where any detail will be lost before I make an exposure. I can quickly evaluate the scene and decide if the detail loss is acceptable. If it isn’t I change the exposure, usually by stopping down the lens.

Manual Aperture Rings are an Asset

I shoot primarily with old Rokkor manual focus lenses. If I see Zebras, I can quickly turn the aperture ring (stopping down) until they disappear. Of course, this only works if you are shooting in manual. In any automatic mode, the camera would simply adjust the exposure for the new aperture setting; which so the the highlights would still be down out. In manual mode, however, stopping down the lens reduces the exposure. Shutter speed and ISO won’t change, so you quickly and easily eliminate highlight damage.

If you are using a more modern lens, you’ll have to take time to use your menus to adjust the aperture, shutter speed or ISO. This might take more time than spinning a physical aperture ring, but the results will still yield superior images. If the situation allows, you could also use the exposure compensation dial.

Zebra Patterns Warn of Lack of Detail

If you examine the dog photo at the top, you’ll notice that his face and much of the chair are covered in Zebra Patterns. That means there is no detail remaining in these areas. Without using the Zebras, I might mistakenly assume there was sufficient information in the highlights. I would shoot the photo expecting post-processing software could restore these areas. When I finally open the shot on my computer I would find the highlights lacked any discernable texture.

Thankfully, the Zebras immediately tell me that the marked areas lack information and unless I change the exposure, no amount of post-processing could save this image.

The second photo shows the same scene after I adjusted the aperture to eliminate the Zebras. Now, the dog’s face and fur have detail, but the mid-tones look muddy and the shadows are too dark. But I know I can use a program such as Adobe Lightroom to open up the shadows and create a useable image. We want to preserve the highlights because software can salvage overexposed shadows.

I recently shot a local car show on a very bright sunlit morning. The conditions were ripe for clipped highlights. Take several dozen brilliant, candy-painted vehicles and polish them to the nth degree. Next, arrange these cars at noon on a brilliant sunny day with no clouds or shade. Without careful attention, blown highlights are nearly guaranteed. Maintaining detail in both the highlights and the shadows will stress out the dynamic range of just about any camera.

Assuming you are shooting in RAW, the answer is to set the exposure to maintain detail in the highlights. This is likely to cause the shadow and mid-tone areas to look dark and muddy in the captured image. When you preview your image on the LCD, you may think the photo is seriously overexposed. Thankfully, there are a host of software tools that we can use to open up the shadows and mid-tones and create a great image.

We don’t want the bright areas to be pure white

If I relied on the meter reading to judge the exposure, the highlight areas in the resulting image would be pure white, with no detail. Since I exposed for the highlights, there should be decent detail in these areas. But the shadow areas will appear too dark straight from the camera. I can use software to lighten the shadows and show any information hidden there. The result will be a nicely exposed image that reveals texture in both the highlights and shadows.

You can see a gallery of images from the 2021 Charlie Craig show here. You’ll notice almost all of the highlight areas retain form and framework, while you can still discern character in the shadows.

I couldn’t spend too much time on each vehicle, so the Zebras were a great asset. I composed and focussed, then adjusted the aperture ring until no Zebras were showing. Then I made my shot, which as mentioned above, looked dark and muddy when I reviewed the images on the LCD screen.

Once I brought the images into Lightroom, I quickly adjusted the shadows and mid-tones to look bright and appealing. The highlights were already properly balanced, so I was quite pleased with the final photos.

Sony Image Ambassador Mark Galer has an informative Youtube video explaining how he uses Zebra patterns in his work. If you’ve read this far, you”ll want to check out Galer’s Zebra Pattern video. Mr. Galer uses a slightly different approach than I do because he uses more modern lenses and auto exposure. The newer cameras Galer uses also offer more Zebra adjustments. My cameras only offer a high setting of 100+, so that is the setting I use.

I have enabled Zebra patterns on all my Sony Mirrorless cameras. This option is turned off in the default settings. Turning Zebras on is a simple menu option. Some people may find the black and white stripes annoying. For me, when I see Zebra stripes I immediately adjust the exposure so they vanish. So the only time I see Zebras is when something in the image is overexposed. Rather than being an annoyance, they’re a helpful tool to avoid blown highlights.

Since turning on Zebras, I have noticed a strong uptick in the number of “keeper” shots I create. As long as I have access to cameras that offers this feature, I will never shoot without Zebras again. They are that useful.

The post Zebra Patterns: Every Mirrorless Photographer Needs Them! appeared first on Alphatracks.

Vampires, monsters, zombies, dropping your camera. When it comes to horror, watching your camera slip from your hands has to outrank anything conceived by Hollywood.

Big Hands, Small Cameras. What Could Go Wrong?

As cameras get smaller and lighter, they are also have become more tricky to hold. My old Minolta SLRs, even those without a built-in grip, always felt solid and secure in my hands.

Enter the Sony mirrorless cameras, especially the A6000 and A7 models. I love the small size, but I am uneasy handling them. Unlike my older Sony dSLRs, there simply isn’t enough space to clasp the camera in my right hand. With one finger over the shutter button, and two fingers clutching the body against my thumb, my little finger is left curling into nothing but air.

You get used to it after a while, but confession time: I sometimes feel nervous holding my camera, especially when I have a heavy (and expensive) lens attached.

I don’t mean to suggest that it is difficult to hold Sony mirrorless cameras. They are comfortable, and most of the time I never consider the value of the object I am carelessly waving around held only by a couple of digits.

That is the heart of the problem. When I am in the middle of a shoot, I am not thinking about the grip on my camera. Exposure, focus, and composition occupy my mind, leaving no room for thoughts of a camera disaster. Which is how accidents happen.

The risk intensifies in a crowd. You’re carrying equipment whose value exceeds that of a good used car. Jostled and jolted by bodies crowded around you, it only takes a second to lose your grip. The next thing you know, your beloved gear has had a great fall. And all the Sony Engineers and all the Alpha Repair Men can’t put your camera back together again.

A Simple Wrist Strap is the Answer

There are always neckstraps, but I don’t like having a strap permanently attached to my camera. Yet, the specter of smashed electronic gear smeared all over the ground haunts me. So, I went looking for a wrist strap.

There are plenty of wrist straps on Amazon, but I chose the WMWL Amazon Choice strap. It looks good, offers solid protection and costs less than ten dollars. What more could you ask for?

The strap attaches to the lug by the camera’s grip. Once in place, it only takes a moment to slip your hand through the loop, then you are ready to shoot.

The loop portion of this strap is made of parachute cord (paracord). Paracord is light and flexible, an excellent choice for a wrist strap. Thin leather sewn to the paracord attaches to a split ring in the side lug.

Some reviewers on Amazon have objected to the lightweight leather, suggesting it isn’t sturdy enough to secure a camera. I am not really concerned about this. I primarily use the strap as cheap insurance, and I am confident that should my cameras slip from my hand the leather would be sufficient to prevent it from crashing to the ground.

That being said, I find myself occasionally allowing the camera to dangle from my wrist. The leather has offered more than adequate support. For the most part, I still hold the camera in my hand with the strap serving as a fail-safe backup. There are times, however, when it is convenient to just let the camera dangle.

Paracord for the Win

The paracord loop is soft and nearly weightless. When I am shooting, I forget it is there. There is a cinch piece you can use to tighten the loop around your wrist. I usually don’t bother with this as just looping the paracord around my wrist feels nice and secure.

The strap comes in a variety of colors. I thought the silver-white version looked great, but Amazon said it would take a week to ship, while the black one was available for free overnight delivery. I wanted the extra protection ASAP, so I opted for black.

I may order a silver-white one for my A6000.

Will a wrist strap help you create better photos? Not directly. But a strap ensures that a moment of carelessness won’t leave your camera in pieces. And with that worry eliminated, you can concentrate on capturing the best images your mind can conceive. In that manner, a wrist strap could improve your photos.

Get it on Amazon for under Ten Dollars

You can get the strap here. As an Amazon affiliate, I will get a small commission if you buy it through my link. But even if you buy it elsewhere, buy one. Horror is fun on the silver screen, but not so much when you are staring at the corpse of a prized camera.

The post Save Your Camera! Use a Wrist Strap appeared first on Alphatracks.

Update: I have switched from these cases to the PowerPax Storacell caddies. Read why I prefer the PowerPax Storacells in this post.

My latest piece of photo equipment cost me less than five bucks. It isn’t a lens, a flash or a custom filter. To tell the truth it isn’t exactly a piece of photo gear at all. Yet, my photography will be the better because of it.

You might not think a battery organizer is a very exciting item, but it eliminates the hassle of keeping AA batteries in order. Any time I can streamline my photography assignments, I get excited.

AA batteries are a photographic necessary if you shoot with electronic flash. I use rechargeable NIMH batteries and I always try to have several freshly charged sets in my camera bag. I’ve tried numerous methods to keep my AA batteries ready for use, but I’ve never been very satisfied with any of them. Until now.

I found some nice nylon plastic battery cases on ebay. These cases hold four AA cells, each battery separated from its neighbor by a nylon partition. I got six of them for under five dollars including shipping. That is sufficient storage for 24 batteries.

I like these cases for several reasons.

It is easy to tell charged and discharged batteries apart

Whenever I charge a set of batteries, I place them into a plastic case. Whenever the batteries in one of my flash units become exhausted, I drop them loose into a pocket on my camera bag. By maintaining this routine, I always know that the batteries in the plastic cases are charged and ready to use. And when I return from an assignment, I know that the loose batteries need to go on the charger. It is also easy to glance through my bag and determine how many charged battery sets I have available.

Batteries in a case don’t get lost

When I am shooting an event, there are times when I need to change batteries quickly. Seconds count if the batteries the my flash start to fail during the middle of the action. If batteries are loose in the bag, I find myself wasting precious seconds rooting around trying to find enough fresh batteries to power the flash. Often I can only find three and have to dig through various filters, sync cords, tripod plates and cleaning brushes to unearth a fourth cell. This doesn’t happen with batteries in cases. The cases are much easier to locate in my my bag, and when I fish a case out I know there is an entire set of four batteries inside.

I can quickly move spare batteries when I swap equipment between bags

I use several different camera bags, depending on how much equipment I need for a particular assignment. Moving lenses and camera bodies between bags is a simple matter, but I take extra care to make sure I don’t forget any important accessories. Storing batteries in cases simplifies the process of making sure that all the batteries get transferred between bags.

Don’t underestimate the little things. A battery case might seem insignificant. If, however, it makes the difference between capturing or missing an important shot, a simple cell case could be one of the most important things in your gadget bag.

The post AA Batteries: Use battery cases to keep them organized appeared first on Alphatracks.

Scan of 1968 Kodak Instamatic negative produced this. Not bad for a cheap, plastic lens camera, but even at this reduced size you can see it is loaded with dust marks.

Tip of the Week: This week’s tip involves a free piece of software from — surprise — Polaroid Corporation. (PRDCQ) You’ve no doubt heard that Polaroid recently stopped production of their instant film stocks. That is a sad event for those enjoy shooting with Polaroid cameras; but I’m more concerned with the survival of Polaroid software. More specifically, Polaroid’s free Dust and Scratches application.

If you are anything like me, you probably have a fair collection of film negatives. Even if you shoot nothing but digital today, some of your best work may have been captured on film.

Red marks indicate the mask created by the Polaroid software. When you clean the image, only the red areas will be effected.

If you want to use some of those older film images in today’s digital world, you basically have two choices. You can pay a lab to create digital images from your negatives; or you scan the negatives yourself. Professional scanning tends to be expensive, so if you have more than a handful of images, a film scanner may be you best choice.

Negative scanning, however can be quite labor intensive. One of the biggest problems, particularity with older negatives, is dirt and scratches. Even tiny particles of dust will be magnified when the resulting scan is enlarged to a usable size. You can clone out the dust marks with a program like Photoshop, but if the dust spots are numerous, retouching becomes extremely time consuming.

Scanner manufacturers usually incorporate some form of dust removal in their scanners. These systems can be effective, but you don’t usually have much control over a hardware based dust removal system.

Image on the left shows a portion the image as it came from the scanner.

As you can see it would take hours to spot all the dust marks. Right image shows the same area after cleaning with the Polaroid Dust and Scratch Removal software. There is still work to be done, but more than 80% of the spots are gone. Tweaking the settings might eliminate even more marks.

Enter Polaroid’s Dust and Scratches Removal software. In the past, Polaroid manufactured a number of film and flat-bed scanners. I’m not sure if they are still producing this equipment, as according to the Polaroid website, most of the scanning equipment is no longer in production.

Fortunately, much of the software is still available online.

“So what?” you say. “I don’t own a Polaroid scanner.”

I’ll let you in on a secret. I don’t own a Polaroid scanner either. But I use Polaroid software with my Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III film scanner. I also use it with my Microtek flat bed scanner.

I first discovered Polaroid Dust and Scratch Removal Software a few years ago. I was scanning in a number of old 126 negatives taken when I was in my early teens. Besides being over 40 years old, it appears the original drug store processing lab wasn’t very concerned with cleanliness. The negs were a mess.

The Minolta Dimage III isn’t designed to scan 126 negatives, but 126 and 35mm negs are exactly the same height. So I was able to insert the 126 strips into the Minolta’s 35mm film carrier.

Because the carrier is not intended for the 126 format, I lost about 1/8″ at the top of each frame. That was no a big deal. What was a big deal was the hundreds of dust specs sprinkled over the final scans.

Of course there will be times the software thinks a crucial part of the image is dust or dirt.

Notice how the cleaning process has removed some of the lettering on this race car (left.)

After reverting the image, I use the select tool to make a loose selection around the effected letters. Now there are no red marks around the lettering, so the cleaning process will ignore this section of the image.

Retouching all those dust mites was out of the question, so I started to cast around for some sort of chemical cleaner. I doing so, I came across Polaroid’s software.

I wasn’t expecting much from Polaroid’s offering. I’ve used other dust removal software, including the despeckle filter in Adobe Photoshop. All of the applications I tried in the past remove dust specs by applying a soft blur to the image. This eliminates the visible dust, but you lose overall sharpness. The decrease in sharpness isn’t overwhelming, but I am of the opinion that any loss of sharpness is unacceptable.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Polaroid D&S software worked differently then the old “blur the image to hide the dust” applications. In the first stage of the process, the application analyzes the image and creates what appears to be vector mask of the image. Anything that appears to be a dust or scratch is flagged. You have a great deal of control over the masking process, so you can eliminate flaws of various sizes, as well as dark and light dust marks.

Because the program could identify small parts of the image as dust, Polaroid allows you to edit the mask. If the program confuses fine lines in the image with dust, you can edit the mask to protect the fine details.

Once the image mask is created, you can “clean” the image. This removes the masked imperfections without touching the unmasked zones. If you aren’t happy with the results you can adjust the settings and clean the image again.

The program is fairly fast. On my Powermac G5, creating a fairly detailed mask took about 30 seconds, while cleaning the image took another 40 seconds. Not exactly speedy, but far quicker than spotting hundreds of dust specs one by one.

The application does involve a bit of a learning curve, but once you learn how the settings work, it is simple and straight-forward.

The price tag for all this high-tech magic? How about zero. You can download the Dust and Scratches program for free. Not a demo or feature limited sample — you get the full working application with no restriction.

Want more? It is available for both Mac and Windows. In addition, you can choose between a stand-alone application or a Photoshop plugin. Because you load your images into the program after you have scanned them, there is no hardware compatibilities to be concerned with. As long as your scanner can create a standard TIFF or JPEG, you can use the software to clean the image.

The only problem I have experienced is that some images won’t load into the program. I use Vuescan as my scanner software for both my slide and flatbed scanners. For reasons I don’t understand, most of the scans saved out of Vuescan aren’t recognized by Polaroid’s software. Opening the image in Photoshop and re-saving as either a TIFF or JPEG generally fixes the problem. Sometimes I have had to save files several times before I could get the Dust and Scratches program to recognize images.

This isn’t Polaroid’s problem, as the software is designed to be used with their own scanning hardware. They offer no guarantee that it will work with a Minolta scanner. Polaroid should be congratulated for offering the software to anyone who wants to use it. If there is a problem with files created with non-Poloroid software and hardware, that should not be Polaroid’s concern.

The final step is to clone out any marks the software didn’t find and to color balance the image.

Even with the file opening hassles, I find Polaroid’s Dust and Scratch Removal software to be a huge time saver. Poloroid is still in business and they are even said to be on the verge of releasing a new digital camera with a built in printer — continuing the “instant print” legacy.

Despite this, you can’t count on the dust removal software being available in the future. My suggestion is that you download the software now, even if you don’t have a need for it right now. If you find yourself with a box full of dusty, scratched negatives, you will be awfully glad you did.

Download http://www.polaroid.com/service/software/poladsr/poladsr.html Poloroid Dust and Scratch Removal Utility

UPDATE 10/25/2009: The original links for the dust and scratches software have gone dead, and I was afraid the software had become unavailable. Thankfully, Alphatracks reader Jurek Woźniak discovered links where you can still locate copies of this software. Remember, there is no support for the D&S software, so don’t bother the folks at Polaroid if you run into difficulties.

Woźniak’s links are:

Download Dust and Scratches for the Windows PC:

Download Dust and Scratches for the Mac

Follow the comments stream below to find links for the appropriate read me files.

Thanks Jurek! You’ve made a lot of photographer/scanners very happy!

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Tom Bonner

Alphatracks

The post Free Dust and Scratch Removal software saves your scans appeared first on Alphatracks.

Steady as you go! The amazing strap trick in action.

Tip of the Week This week’s trick concerns a new way to hold your dSLR. It should work with any dSLR or SLR and the best thing is it doesn’t require any extra equipment or expense.

A few weeks back, I was on an outdoor shoot on a large piece of property. I had finished my photography and I passed up the offer of a ride back to my truck, preferring to hike through the woods. Before I set out, someone offered me a glass of Gatorade.

So I started down the trail with the drink in my left hand and carrying my Sony dSLR in my right. I had a strap on the camera, but I let it dangle free and just carried the camera by the grip.

I spotted a squirrel next to the trail and decided it was worth grabbing an image. I had left the A350 on, so I was ready to shoot. Well, almost. My problem was the sports drink.

I figured if I put the drink down on the ground, the squirrel might scamper off. I considered simply dropping the plastic cup, but I feared I would end up with liquid all over my jeans and the impact would scare my quarry away.

The third option would be to steady the lens while still holding the cup with my left hand. But I’ve made enough bone-head mistakes in my life to realize that holding several ounces of sticky red liquid that close to all that pricey electronics was a disaster waiting to happen.

So I concluded the only course of action was to shoot one handed, holding the camera in my right hand and trusting Super Steady Shot to keep the camera and lens from shaking.

As I raised the camera to shoot, the loose strap brushed against my left hand. Without thinking, I wrapped my fingers around the strap and carefully pulled downward. At the same time I kept a steady upward pressure on the camera. I was amazed how steady the camera felt.

Long story short, the squirrel dashed away before I could shoot. But I took several landscape images using the strap trick. I couldn’t believe how steady the the rig made the camera.

Not long after that, I was shooting the the image series inside the Apple Hill general store. When I found I needed to shoot with shutter speeds around 1/10 second, I remembered the strap trick.

This time there was no squirrel or sports drink, but pulling upward against the strap allowed me to shoot at long shutter speeds without shaking.

You can see a sample image taken with this technique at 1/10 second. Super Steady Shot may have been a factor in the image sharpness, but I’m convinced the strap trick contributed to keeping the image sharp.

Some of you may recognize a strong similarity to the ever popular “poor man’s tripod.” I first heard about the poor man’s tripod decades ago. It is apparently still arround, as just this year, I have read about it on at least three blogs and heard it described on two different podcasts.

Basically the idea behind the PMT involves tying a string to a screw inserted into the camera’s tripod mount. You step on the string and pull up on the camera, and the resulting tension keeps the camera steady even at long shutter speeds.

Obviously this strap trick has a lot in common with the PMT. The PMT may offer greater steadiness, since the ground can’t move when you step on the string.

But the strap trick offers some real advantages. The most important thing is that you don’t have to make anything to use the trick. If the strap is already on your camera, you are ready to use it to steady your images. Even if I took the time to make a PMT, (I never have) chances are I wouldn’t have it with me when I needed it. But the strap is usually with me whenever I haul out my cameras.

I haven’t tried this with any really long lenses as yet. I know it works very well with lenses in the 18-85mm range. I intend to try it out with my beercan in the near future, to see how well it works at 210mm.

Why not try it yourself and let me know what you think. As I said in the opener, it won’t cost you anything.

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Tom Bonner

Alphatracks

The post Keep your dSLR steady with the amazing strap trick appeared first on Alphatracks.