french polynesia

Hooorraaaay, what an weekend surprise.. found my third FIOTW, aehhh now it`s called  FPOTW ‘Free Photo of the Week’ on the iStockphoto Homepage after 3,5 years of uploading my images there.

This image made it as POTW: (Download it for free, just click)

Thanks to the inspectors for choosing this long time (32 seconds) twilight exposure of a wooden jetty on beautiful Tahaa Island (French Polynesia) as the FPOTW (08.02.2009).

Here are the other FIOTW images (2008/2006) and the IOTW from 2007 from the past:

Above Left: FIOTW 15.06.2008————Above Right FIOTW 23.04.2006

Above: Image of the Week 15.07.2007

The Free Photo of the Week is one of my very, very FIRST shots with the new Hasselblad H3D-II 50 camera I bought 8 weeks ago. I had and have to learn again to get ‘blindly’ used to this camera system (it`s really a bit different). I also have to adjust my workflow with the monster files of 280-320 MB for 1(!) 16Bit TIFF the hasselblad H3D-II 50 body captures.

But with every new shooting session I`m getting more and more used to it – to shot as ‘blind-natural’ as with my Canon 1D MK III Body (which I still need for people, action shots and low light). I will soon write some more words about the camera and my new workflow.  I`m used to work with the combination Lightroom 2.x together with Photoshop CS4, that’s the reason why I had to implement the Hasselblad RAW converter Phocus 1.02 software into my existing Canon workflow. Neither Lightroom 2.x nor Photoshop CS4 can open the *.3FR or *.FFF RAW files the Hasselblad Digital Backs produce. (No matter if your using the 22MP/31MP/39MP/50MP Backs).

You might of course do every tweak within Phocus 1.02 (it`s really like lightroom), but as I have a lot of individual presets (and more automated scripts)  in my lightroom 2.x programm folder (AND: i`m still using the workflow Lightroom 2.X+CS4 for the photos with  my Canon 1Ds MK III), there has to be a step in between..

I will write a short wrap up of my personal workflow to be able to have H3D-II & Canon 1Ds Images together in one Lightroom Collection. One thing for sure is that you will need more Harddisk Space with the ‘Hassi’. And I mean ALOT of Hardisk space.

To give you a short overview:

HDD Space for 1 H3D-II 50MPixel Shot in my Workflow:

• 74.3  MB – *.3FR File (Compressed H3D-II RAW File shot on the CF Card)
• 84.8  MB – *.FFF File (Uncompressed RAW File H3D-II after importing (extracting) the *.3FR File into Phocus 1.02
• 286.9 MB – *.TIFF File 16 BIT (after you export a *.FFF into 16 BIT TIFF)
• 290.9 MB – *-2.TIFF File 16 BIT, Adobe RGB (This is the second version of the TIFF, with Retouching, Sensorspot Removal, Photoshop (or Lightroom) Adjustments as a 1 Layer Version. (Don`t think about saving a TIFF with 3-4 Layers as this will multiply the Filesize)
• 40.2 MB – *.JPG File 8 BIT, Adobe RGB to upload to e.g. iStockphoto.

If you like to backup every ‘working step’ you might end up with around 777.1 MB Data for each photo…. Wow. You can of course drop the *.3FR File after importing it (it`s just the compressed CF-Card Version of the *.FFF Raw File), so you could save at least 74.3 MB, but hey, that`s just 10% of the total…

Another possible way is to import *.DNG Files (*.FFF Files can be converted to Adobe DNG out ouf Phocus 1.02) into Lightroom 2.x. But during the conversion from *.FFF to *.DNG you lose the special Hasselblad RAW Algorithms (which optimise Moire, Distorion, Vignetting, Fringing and more optical faults for each lens individually) – Not Good.

So the ‘large’ TIFF Step is in my opinion a ‘must’. As far as I know this detour is not intentional from Hasselblad – not be able to convert their ‘secret formulas’ into the DNG – it`s more the limitation of the DNG container (and ACR Interpreter) itself which prevents special Phocus Raw Tweaks to be included into a *.DNG file. I really hope that in the future there might be a better HDD and time saving solution…but as of today the way over TIFF is a must. Some might think ‘why 16Bit’ and not ‘8 Bit’ TIFF files to save space. This really depends on what your shooting. The bigger range of 16BIT simply gives you more tweaking freedom in CS4 or Lightroom. If you don`t need that, work with the 8Bit Tiff`s – but for me 16 BIT is again a ‘must’ until the final conversion to a 8Bit *.JPG.

If you have comments, questions, drop a line below. I will continue to write about the differences of both worlds (Canon – Hasselblad) here in my blog.

More H3D-II 50MPixel Images ? Here are some example I uploaded to iStockphoto from my last trip to French Polynesia (Tahiti, Moorea, Taha’a, Raiatea & Bora Bora) & Cook Islands (Rarotonga & Aitutaki):

Beach, Sea, Palm Trees, Coconuts, Islands and more:
 

Landscapes, Seascapes, White Beaches:

Landscapes and Nature:

Lightbox: Cook Islands + French Polynesia, Tahiti, Bora Bora & More:

And here are more of my newest uploads…just click.