The Lens Hood Makes A Difference

My picture experiment today was using the lens hood that came with the Tamron 18mm-200mm lens. I saw a difference just after a couple of photos, that would be the same type taken every day at the same time of morning.


After the hounds have their breakfast, Sadie, Stella and I go outside for them to dump their tanks and while my coffee is being made. I only take 3-5 pictures during this time. The small picture I use to post here of the field across the highway, then a shot in back as I stand at the corner of the house and some of the hounds if there is something to take.

All of these pictures posted were not edited in any way and all were shot using the lens hood. I think that with this specific lens, the hood is needed at all times because the colors were being flushed out from the additional light.

Granted we are moving from winter to spring. Things are getting greener by the day if not by the hour. Pictures taken in the winter months in the Midwest are dull and drab in color.  Yet during those months the color of the hounds did not stand out unless I enhanced their color when I edited the pictures.

Stella decided it was going to be one of those days where walking was not her main priority, nor was tracking deer scent. After she moved from the spot above, this is what I found in the picture below. There was nothing there but the wet leaves from where she had been licking.

Sadie was on her own schedule and was always pretty far ahead of us, even after she would backtrack and wait on Stella and I.

I believe whoever or whatever was chewing the tree limb decided enough is enough and moved on to some other delicacy.

I was trying to decide while I waited on Stella if I should just walk on with Sadie and let her do whatever she wanted but I did not want to go get her near the end of the walk. Most likely she would have ended up by the neighbor's wooded area.

While Sadie was showing more energy than normal ...

Stella was walking and moving in an extra slow gear. I could almost hear her dragging her paws on the ground as she slowly walked along the edge of the field.

By the time I took this next picture, Sadie had already been up to the far right corner to check out the 'deer highway', then circled back to get Stella and I. That did not matter to Stella, she was on her own pace today and wasn't going to change.

Neither hound had any urges to take off out of bounds and as I turned the corner to head home they spent the majority of time walking right next to me with Stella right behind me, out of camera range. I had to stop and wait for them to get this far in front of me.

I believe you can tell just how slow she is walking. Each step is slow and once again she was falling behind Sadie. Based on the starter growth of the field and lack of weeds growing, it looks like their first cut of hay will be one of their best quality in June.

With temperatures headed to the 70's we were going to make a couple of more walks, fix the three screens that Stella destroyed last summer and do as much outside as possible.

I was off to a good start, with the 2nd hound walk complete right after their lunch, I went to work on repairing the small screen windows with new screen on two bedroom windows and one spare.

This is the new grass I planted a few weeks ago, really about a month ago. It survived freezing temps a few days after I planted seed the first time. I spread some more seed, then the heavy rains came. So I spread the last seed I had in the bag I bought in early March. It is filling in the bank quite well and looks to be right on schedule. It will look good next spring in 2018.

All the photos taken this afternoon were with the lens hood on, no editing.

I found out last summer the hard way that Stella was the escape artist they claimed she was. I made the mistake thinking there was no way she could crawl through a window that was only 16" tall and 39" off the floor.

She did.

By the time I returned from my Z4 drive with the top down, she was sitting next to the FJ, panting, ready for me to let her back inside for some water and a nap.

Before

After

If I don't have any more memory lapses when I get ready to leave the house, and make sure the windows are closed, then these new screens should last another 15 years like the others did. I guess there is one advantage of repairing them ... they will not have be cleaned with the high pressure washer in a few weeks.

I was at a good pace, getting things finished, and checking a few things off of my long 'to do' list, until I stopped at 2pm to eat some lunch. During the time eating a salad, a small carton of Chinese food, I remembered the final round of The Masters was on tv today. I usually watch the last 4-5 holes.

Around that was the Long Beach Grand Prix Indy Car race, 85 laps on a different tv channel. With some slight stiffness in my lower back from doing something as simple as repairing the screen windows I thought it might be the perfect time to cancel the rest of the list for the day and my rules in retirement. That rule is not to do more than one 'major' thing per day. LOL No schedules and no rush.

In the meantime we headed out for our 3rd hound walk of the day but cut it off short. Neither hound seemed too enthused and it ended halfway to to the first corner when Stella sat down looked at me and didn't move. So all three of us turned around and headed home. They both were sound to sleep within minutes after walking inside.

After looking at these pictures I am going to make one adjustment in the camera settings and set the light setting to -1. That will brighten them up just a little and other than that I think I have found part of the problem and it was the light that washed out the colors while using the lens without the hood. I never used the lens hood with the Nikon lens but need to with the Tamron lens.

You can take a look if you want at my photos on Flickr. This link will show about 1,000 photos I've made available for public viewing. I have all my photos in Flickr as a backup. The reason I bring this up, I think you will see a real difference in the picture quality when they are not compressed by Blogger. Also my Wordpress blog does not compress the images I load and they are the same pictures I use in this blog. I think you will see a difference.

Thanks for the emails and comments about my picture blog post Saturday night. It's always good to get opinions from blog readers. Check out these photos from today and let me know what you think. Maybe I have solved the picture quality problem by using the lens hood.

The 'to do' list is about to commence here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

What Happened To My Picture Quality?

Stella was heading out for her 3rd walk of the day on Saturday. I am not sure she is a real fan of the three walks in one day as she seems to walk in her "slower than slow" mode. To the point of dragging the front edges of her paws with each step.


Sadie is always ready for a walk, sometimes even minutes after we return.

My post tonight is going to be about picture quality. I am either losing my mind or I have lost the deep colors of my pictures. I have thought the picture quality of my photos has decreased a lot in recent months. At first I thought it was the time of year with dull drab surroundings. I rechecked all of my camera settings, made sure the lens was clean as well as the mirrors inside the camera.

I even took a day of photos with my iPhone 6s so I could compare them. Still, they all looked 'off'. The colors were not as deep and rich as I remember them being when I bought the camera in September 2014 and even as recently as September 2016.

Since I shoot all my pictures in the 'auto' mode, there are only so many ways I can change the settings. By the camera default settings I would assume that all of them are set for optimal results.

None of these pictures on the blog today were edited in any way.

I have searched google for info, I've watched YouTube videos from camera professionals, read Nikon D3200 forums, and read my owners manual from cover to cover ... I didn't find what I was looking for. Although I did find one answer to one of my questions.

By default, the D3200 pictures shot at jpg, are in a 'soft' mode. They need to have their 'sharpness' adjusted, thus the reason I was finding they were looking much better when I did that and it really wasn't my old eyes that were the problem. Sharpness isn't my complaint though. Depth of color is, vibrant natural colors are not there most of the time.

To me a lot of my pictures have a dull quality when it comes to color. I am not a professional photographer and probably not a high amateur but I do know the time of day makes a difference in the light, which makes a difference in picture quality.

All of these pictures were taken after 5pm where most of my blog pictures are taken between 9:30am - 11:30am. Still I can see a difference in the pictures I take in the afternoons, where they might not show up on the blog.

I know that sunshine will make my pictures look better than those with overcast skies ... just like my moods.

Luckily I have saved every picture taken with the Nikon D3200, ~10,000 of them. I also have folders for different topics and each hound has their own folder of pictures, most recent on top. Just like spreadsheets I might be a little obsessive when it comes to making file folders because I have a folder labeled "house roof" ... where there is a daily picture of the back of my house where I can see the older roof in all kinds of weather and note if there is any damage taking place. Too curious I guess.

For a while I had talked myself into thinking the change of picture quality took place when I replaced the stock Nikon lens with a new Tamron lens. So I went back and looked at pictures of the same things, side by side, shot close to the same time of day ... I did not see any differences in the lens used.

Just to make sure I went out Saturday morning on the first walk of the day with the Nikon 55mm - 200mm lens attached. I was instantly reminded why I bought a new Tamron lens ... the Nikon lens would not auto focus on the first picture. Later on during the walk, it would not auto focus on any length greater than 70mm zoom. For reference I posted all of those pictures on my private blog where I could look at them on the Blogger platform and compare.

I saw no difference in picture quality nor depth of color.

So about the time I downloaded these pictures for tonight's blog post, I had just watched a video on a basic set up for the Nikon D3200 ... and it came to me ... the possible answer. One, that I will check out on the Sunday morning hound walk.

When I first bought the camera and started shooting pictures, I was shooting on a setting of 'RAW-JPEG". After reading a few forum answers that I found searching on google, that may not be the solution either.

I do remember the reasons I changed from Raw to Jpg Fine ... file size. I also had to do extra steps to reduce the size of the picture so I could upload it into Blogger or Wordpress. I was told that the quality would not be that much different, if seen at all, between Raw and Fine settings. Basically the raw file was like a negative of the picture, while the jpg was the picture itself.

Here is a picture of Sadie taken on September 29, 2014 with the Nikon lens. You can see the different in sharpness, clarity, and color. It is also funny/surprising that I was still putting her on the tether anytime she was outside.

Or this one taken July 9, 2016 at 4:45pm ... not edited

Those above were taken with the Nikon 55mm-200mm lens.

September 6, 2016 my new Tamron 18mm-200mm lens arrived and I saw no difference in color or quality. The picture below was taken the morning after the lens arrived. In my eyes, this picture looks much better than any picture I have taken in the last 6 months.

Maybe it's my eyes ... but recent photos don't look as good as the ones I took last fall.

I think I'll take a night off from google searches, baseball games, picture files and start a new book. I have a few on my shelf that were bought but never read. With tall glasses of caffeinated ice tea that should keep me occupied for the rest of the night into the early morning hours.

The beautiful weather is back in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Howling Winds And 31°

What a rude awakening !!!!

Yesterday I was wearing a t-shirt and cargo shorts for the 3rd day in a row and this morning I walk outside and notice some very very light snow flurries.

It was near 70° by lunchtime yesterday, hot enough for the infamous hermit ... Heidi ... to escape from her hibernating cave built with my Marmot sleeping bag. She didn't join us for the walk yesterday afternoon but she did explore the front, side and back yards while we were gone.

We took off for our 2nd of 3 walks of the day. I could tell that Stella was back to her old habit of laying back ... Sadie and I kept walking. I wanted to see what Stella would do if I left her alone and in the end I was right.

Sadie really enjoyed the warm weather, almost if not 70°. You could even feel the heat from the sun as we walked. It was hard to believe that by Saturday morning I would be back in wool socks, hiking boots, jeans and a down parka doing the walk.

As I glanced back I saw no sign of Stella as I expected. Sadie and I were walking along the back edge of the field. Just as I was about to turn my head and face the direction I was I was walking ... I noticed that Stella was already over by the woods behind the neighbor's house.

That was what I expected her to do but I did not think it would happen that soon. As long as she stayed in my viewing area I was fine with it.

Sadie hadn't noticed her ... she kept exploring the center of the field while I continued to walk.

Whatever Stella had found it must have been good, she didn't even lift her head as I approached her.

Once Sadie saw Stella, she took off sprinting to see what she had found. Once I got over to that spot and looked at the ground ... you wouldn't believe ... I found nothing there. Nothing but bare ground and wet grass.

When Stella refused to even lift her head and come when I called her, I pulled out the only decision maker I had ... the standard 6' dog leash. Even after I connected it to her collar, she pulled away to move her head back to the spot she was really interested in.

I dropped the leash to the ground and she followed me as we walked directly to the house instead of moving back to the worn path.

I knew it would be cold this morning when we got up but when I stepped out to take the first picture of the day, a freezing wind hit my face and it felt much much colder than 31°. Luckily it's going to change by Monday and get back up into the 50s and 60s.

I guess one advantage of having a black car is that it doesn't matter how light the snow flurries are, you can tell it's been trying to snow. Nothing of any substance is expected in 'the tropics' today.

We did the normal wait before taking the first walk of the day ... coffee, internet reading. The winds had picked up even more speed, it was freezing my face and small crystals of snow was barely visible. My iPhone weather app said it was 31°, winds out of the west at 18mph and a 'feels like' 18°.

At least there was a lot of blue sky and you could see the sunshine so all is not lost.

Both hounds were energetic and didn't take long to move out in front of me quite a ways.

You can barely see the direction of the winds blowing the hay that was missed during last fall's mowing. While I was looking at Sadie, Stella sprinted around both of us and headed to the far right corner.

It was good to see her running again. I was beginning to wonder if she was feeling okay since it had been a while since she had been sprinting at full speed in the field.

Sadie then passed me sprinting but she was heading in a different direction than Stella ... both interested in different areas.

Sadie went one direction and Stella headed the other direction ... both very focused on the scents they had found.

I was surprised to see Stella sprint toward me when I called her name ... that was a sure sign just how cold it must have been. She was way out in front of me before I could focus the camera. She did some good running today.

I knew when I saw them like this ... something was up and I wondered if I was going to have to chase them to the woods north of us and farther than I wanted to walk or run in today's weather.

Luckily when they took of running they did a large looping circle instead of heading toward the woods in the 'no fly zone'.

There were either sounds or scents that really had their interest today.

Stella is too skinny. I've been feeding her larger portions of food but that doesn't put the weight back on her. It looks like she needs more fat and protein in her food.

Sadie still battles a heavy waistline but some of that should come off this summer.

For once I didn't have to call either of them to 'come on' as we neared the house. Both of them wanted back inside where it was 30° warmer.

It was a good test for my camera today. The other day when I mentioned too many of my early morning pictures seemed to be blurry lately, I had a reader comment:

"The camera may develop moisture trouble inside the lens with the change in temp from inside to outside for the short term."

I thought that might be a possibility but then I started thinking why did it take so long to do that? It was only recently I started noticing a change in my picture quality. So today's change in temps was a good test to see if what I thought might be the problem.

User error ....

I think today's pictures I took on this mornings walk proves that I had become lazy when taking pictures. I might have been breathing while I took the picture, thus a slight movement of the camera. I definitely found out my arms were out of position because I had become lazy.

These past two days I have made sure my left hand is directly under the lens, that both my arms and elbows are tucked in close to my chest to prevent any movement of the camera. Forming a human tripod for the camera. Then right before taking the picture I either take a deep breath or hold my breath.

It might be my eyes but the pictures from this morning's walk look much sharper to me so that proves to me it was user error ... me ... that caused the pictures being not quite as sharp as I use to take.

Not much planned today except for some book reading, watch a couple of college basketball games and stay warm here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.