Johan W. Elzenga

Hawaii photo gallery online

Johan W. Elzenga — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:40:04 +0000

I’ve just put my Hawaii photo gallery online. The photos were taken during a two weeks trip across the ‘Big Island’.

Canon 200-400mm lens

Johan W. Elzenga — Wed, 15 May 2013 00:45:28 +0000

Canon has finally announced the 200-400mm lens with built-in 1.4x converter. This unique lens promises to be a dream for wildlife photographers, giving you a fast f/4 200-400mm lens, with an option to change it into a 280-560mm f/5.6 with just a switch. It’s very costly (12,000 euros), but very tempting nevertheless. Watch out for my Zambia images in September…

Lava flow in Hawaii

Johan W. Elzenga — Thu, 09 May 2013 22:34:55 +0000

There are many active volcanos all over the world, but most only erupt from time to time. Kilauea on the big island of Hawaii has been erupting since 1983. At the southern coast the lava flows into the Pacific Ocean, making a boat trip to this point possibly the most spectacular boat trip a photographer can make…

Handheld night shot

Johan W. Elzenga — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:39:01 +0000

Only a few years ago, taking night shots could only be done from a sturdy tripod. The image quality of digital cameras has improved tremendously however, especially at high ISO settings. This shot of Hong Kong was taken handheld at 6400 ISO, using a Canon EOS-1D X camera.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 beta

Johan W. Elzenga — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:29:52 +0000

Adobe has released a ‘public beta’ of Photoshop Lightroom 5. As with the introduction of Lightroom 4, the changes are not earth shattering, but interesting nevertheless. My favourite new feature must be that the clone/healing tool is now a real brush. It still works the same as in previous versions, but you can now brush an area rather than just click to make a round adjustment. The second feature I like much is called ‘Upright’. Lightroom will try to straighten the picture automatically. This does not only work when the horizon needs to be straightened, but also for verticals (perspective correction). It usually works fine, although sometimes an image is ‘corrected’ very oddly. Remember it’s still in beta. Other new features are the ability to edit and save custom page layouts in the Book module. You can download a copy of the beta at Adobe Labs.

Quick Tip: Aperture adjustment

Johan W. Elzenga — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:02:48 +0000

If you took images in dull weather conditions, it’s often nice to make a small adjustment to make them look a little bit more sunny. If you use Apple Aperture, you can set the white balance slightly higher, but that will introduce a visible yellow color cast if you go too far. An alternative that often works better is to increase the color saturation of only selective colors. Add a ‘Color’ adjustment brick, select the Red colors and set the saturation to 60. Set the Range to 2.00, so you will affect all red colors. Next go to the Yellow colors and do the same here. I only used a slightly lower value for the saturation this time (50), but these settings depend on the image and on what you want to achieve.