I got out of bed before J and started working on a blog entry. Had breakfast of Quaker Natural Granola - Oats & Honey & Raisins with powdered milk. Worked on the blog entry. J left around 10:25 to go for a walk. I finished working on the blog entry. J returned around 11:00.

I had lunch of Clif Bars: two Chocolate Peanut Crunch and an Oatmeal Raisin Walnut. I backed up some hard drives while eating. I left around 1:30 and ...

Walked out to the main road and then back along the road to the RV. On the way back, I came across two chihuahua-like dogs in the road. One started yapping at me because I was invading his territory, then quieted down and cautiously circled around me as I kept walking towards, and by, him. After I had moved down the road a safe distance, the dog started yapping at me again to make sure that I'd keep moving along. After he was satisfied, he shut up and ran off back down the road towards the maintenance area where there are some houses.

I returned to the RV around 2:50.

Lens Testing

I went outside to test the Lee Filters Foundation Kit, a filter holder for 4-inch (100mm) photographic filters, and the wide-angle adapter ring I bought for it, on my wide-angle lenses attached to my Canon EOS 1Ds Mk III which has a full-frame sensor. I photographed the clear blue sky with various filters (UV, circular polarizer) on the lenses first, then with the wide-angle adapter and finally with the Foundation Kit attached too so I could evaluate vignetting. I took pictures at f4, f5.6, f8, f11, and f16, and then evaluated the RAW files in Capture One (C1).

First up was the Canon EF 24-105mm f4 L IS USM at 24mm. With no filter, there's noticeable vignetting at f4, slight vignetting at f11, and insignificant vignetting at f16. The B+W F-Pro UV filter, that's usually attached when no other filter is attached, increased vignetting ever so slightly. Attaching just a B+W F-Pro circular polarizer gave results similar to having just the UV filter, but there was still slight vignetting at f16. Then I attached just the wide-angle adapter to the circular polarizer because I had planned to keep using my screw-on polarizer with the Foundation Kit. The wide-angle adapter was visible in the corners at all f-stops tested, so using a circular polarizer between the lens and the Foundation Kit will only work if I crop the images to a 4x5 aspect ratio. Attaching the Foundation Kit didn't change the vignetting. Then I took off the circular polarizer and attached the wide-angle adapter directly to the lens. There was no noticeable change from the lens-only shots. Attaching the Foundation Kit increased vignetting slightly at f4, but there was no noticeable difference by f11.

For the 24-105 at 24mm, it looks like there will be no problem using the Foundation Kit without a polarizer for most landscape work because I would usually shoot it at at least f11. With a screw-in polarizer attached between the lens and the Foundation Kit attached to it, then I'll have to compose 4x5-aspect-ratio images.

Next up was the Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8 L USM (the Mk I version) at 16mm, and I tested it using the same sequence as the 24-105. The B+W slim UV filter increased vignetting compared to just the lens at f4, but any noticeable difference was gone by f8. I took off the UV filter and put on the B+W F-Pro circular polarizer. I would normally use a B+W slim circular polarizer, but it doesn't have threads on the front of it (that's how it gets to be "slim") and I wanted to evaluate a "waterfall setup" — polarizer and neutral density filters in the Foundation Kit. The filter produces dark corners up to f16, so images would have to be cropped to 4x5 (full width) or trimmed slightly in 2x3. Adding the wide-angle adapter to the polarizer increases the size of the dark corners, but a full-width 4x5 crop would remove them. Attaching the Foundation Kit didn't change the images. Then I removed the circular polarizer and attached just the wide-angle adapter. That configuration worked better than with just the UV filter attached. Adding the Foundation Kit didn't change the images.

For the 16-35 at 16mm, it looks like there will be no problem using the Foundation Kit without a polarizer for most landscape work because I would usually shoot it at at least f11. With a screw-in polarizer attached between the lens and the Foundation Kit attached to it, then I'll have to compose 4x5-aspect-ratio images.

Last up was the Canon TS-E 24mm f3.5 L (the Mk I version). I tested it using the same sequence as the 24-105, and all images were taken with no tilt or shift. There was some vignetting with the Hoya UV filter at f4 and f5.6, but it was gone by f8. The same effect was seen without any filter at all. Next I attached a B+W 72 to 77mm step-up ring and the same B+W F-Pro circular polarizer that was used for the other lenses. This is how I plan to use the Foundation Kit because I currently only have the one 77mm adapter ring. The results with the stepped-up polarizer were the same as with no filter. Then I attached the wide-angle adapter to the polarizer, and that gave me the same results again. Adding the Foundation Kit didn't change the images either. So, it looks like this will be a workable combination for future shooting. Of course, vignetting might start sooner when tilt and/or shift is applied with those attachments than without them. I also ran the sequence of shots without the circular polarizer, and not surprisingly, they were the same as without any filter too.

It's great news that the TS-E 24mm doesn't have any vignetting problems with the circular polarizer and Foundation Kit attached because that's the lens I prefer to use whenever possible! It also means that I won't have to invest in a 4-inch circular polarizer and also a second filter holder so that I can rotate the square circular polarizer independently of a split neutral density filter.

After the lens tests, I took a picture of the old fishing lure (left) that I found on the walk yesterday along Elephant Butte Lake. It was caught on a bush, and I suspect that the owner had caught the bush when the water level was higher and the bush was under water.

I came back inside the RV and started to perform some surgery on my Canon TS-E 90mm to align the tilt and shift functions. (The lenses ship with the tilt and shift functions at 90° to eath other.) I was inspired by the wonderful tutorial at Northlight Images. There are four screws that have to be removed, and I was able to get the first one out without too much trouble. I couldn't get the second screw out. First I stripped the inside of the Phillips head a bit, then I broke off the tip of the screwdriver! :( I tightened up the first screw and moved on to a second project.
I installed the new Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB 7200 rpm 2.5" SATA Notebook Hard Drive in the new Mapower MAP-KC21ES USB 2.0 and dual FireWire 800 enclosure. Then I started to backup my MacBook Pro (MBP) to the new drive. The plan is to put the 500GB hard drive in the MBP, and I figured a good test was to try running the MBP off of the new drive in the external enclosure first before opening up the MBP which will be an involved process.

J left around 3:35 in the Jeep to go photograph at the North Monticello area. I looked into small screw extractors because I was still interested in changing the orientation of the tilt and shift functions of the Canon TS-E 90mm. I found some that didn't require pre-drilling the screw to be extracted, so I tried to remove the third and fourth screws from the lens. I was able to loosen the third screw and then broke the tip off another screwdriver trying to remove the fourth. :( So, now I know to order two replacement screws from Canon. :) The external drive enclosure, which is aluminum, was getting rather warm after running continuously for about 45 minutes, so I placed it upside down on a large metal pot to give it a larger heat sink.

I went outside around 5:10 to fill up the RV fresh water tank in preparation for leaving early tomorrow. J returned as I was finishing. I set up the grill and J made the citrus sauce (right). The recipe is from J's sister-in-law L. J had had "an accident" while putting in a dash of cayenne pepper the last time we had it, and that made it even better than the previous times, so this time she intentionally added more cayenne pepper than the recipe calls for.

We had dinner around 6:00 of the grilled citrus salmon using silver salmon from Alaska given to us by our friends L&S. It was delicious! The long-grain and wild rice, and peas from our friend RA in Alaska, rounded out the great meal.

After doing the dishes, I ordered a set of Eazypower 82681 Spin It Out damaged screw removers (No.0, No.1, No.2, No.3, No.4) and a Stanley 66-052 6-Piece Precision Screwdriver Set (Phillips #0 and #1 and slotted 1.4, 2.0, 2.4, and 3.0mm) from Amazon.

Then I converted the images selected from my previous stock submission from the uncompressed TIFFs that I used to send into JPEG (compression level 10) files that I can now upload to an FTP server. I'm glad they have finally set up an FTP server because I used to have to FedEx DVDs for my stock submissions to London — expensive! I was amazed at how efficient the JPEG compression is for a large file. I had processed the selected images to be 5150 pixels on the longest side, and the 67 uncompressed TIFF files took up 3.4GB. Those same 67 images in JPEG (compression level 10) only take up 320MB!