...Call it perfect

Another absolutely glorious morning and another perfect shave out on the deck.  The family is still asleep...well, sounds like the whole neighborhood is, but that isn't unusual.  I live on Long Island's Great South Bay...there are only two roads into and out of my neighborhood, so if you don't live here there's no reason to come down this far towards the water.  Only home buyers and site-seers pass by so the neighborhood is typically dead-quiet.

But I far digress...

What constitutes a perfect shave?  For each of us, the exact specs will differ.  YMMV is a pretty popular acronym in the on-line wet-shave community..  Your Mileage May Vary means what works for me might be a horror show for you.  I don't define my shaves by how close they are, though that can be one means of describing them.  A perfect shave is a sum of all it's parts..it's a sensory rich experience.  A soft brush against my skin, gently lifting the hairs; A sweet smelling lather that lasts for multiple passes;  A fresh blade that doesn't skip or chatter; Unlimited time; No nicks, cuts, weepers or irritation; The feel of the razor and brush in my hands....

No question..I am a hardware junky. 
(hardware = razor, brush, bowls, face cloth, jars and containers / software = creams, soaps, oils, balms)

I enjoy the interface that exists between the tools of the trade..  I feel the same about my camera gear.  The tools are part of the experience.  New things that look old, old things made new..

Back to this mornings shave...

The razor is from a new company that turns and mills the parts from solid stainless steel.  iKon razors are just about perfect and this razor will last lifetimes.  It's heavy, yet well balanced and the handle has perfectly placed knurls to help your grip with wet hands.  This is a numbered limited edition and  sports an open comb which is the teeth on the head.  What I like about an open comb (OC) is that with each pass, it leaves a bit more lather on the skin than a regular safety razor will which better lubes the blade that follows. 

The cream?  C.O.Bigelow is a private label for Bath & Body Works and the cream is made by Proraso of Italy.  It is a barber shop staple.  Once it hits your skin you get a wonderful blast of eucalyptus and menthol.  It lathers well, lasts on the skin and is slick as an eel in olive oil.

Adding to the sensory rich experience and hardware inventory is the cool metal key used to turn down the tube of cream.  I am seriously anal retentive about keeping this stuff neat and use these keys in all my tubes even my toothpaste.  I searched for weeks and finally found and bought a handful of  them at Crabtree and Evelyn.

Brush... yes, brushes.  There are more sizes, shapes, colors and hair grades than I can list..give me some time, I'll do my best.  The best brushes are stuffed with Badger hair and the highest grade sports lots of names, most commonly called Silvertip or High Mountain and comes from the neck of the Badger.  The actual hair cluster is called a knot and most are made in China where the Badger is considered a pest, so killing them for their hair is entirely legal.  For those who have reason to avoid Badger there are knots made of Boar hair, horse hair and synthetic materials.  

This brush is a Silvertip, Grade A, three band (refers to the bands across the hairs) made by Penworks.  I purchased pre-owned and it is currently my favorite brush.  I'll revisit the whole pre-owned deal, as well as more details on brushes, in future posts.. 

The aftershave balm is a simple fragrant cream.  Very Sexy, for Men..  a gift from my wife. 

The Elmo face cloth is courtesy of my daughter.

There have been lots of questions via email about how to get started..what razor, where to buy, technique...  I'll keep the momentum on my side and will answer all the questions.  I promise.

Today's image is courtesy of the Canon G9.  It's day three and I love it.  Shot in RAW, aperture priority at minus 1.3 EV to underexpose the background, then I built the light back up using a Nikon SB-600 mounted in a Justin Clamp off to camera right.  The flash was fired using a Radio Popper JrX transmitter and the JrX Studio Receiver.   The Radio Popper setup allows for control the output level of remote flashes.  You can have an infinite number of flashes in three separate groups with each group having independent level control.  Sweet stuff.  The Justin Clamp has endless uses.  I have a few of these in my lighting bag.  I need a Circular Polarizer in 58mm for the G9; Ironically, I had one and sold it a few weeks ago.  In this situation, the CirPol would have knocked down the specular highlights and reflection in the stainless and the handle of the brush.  In retro-spec, a diffuser over-head and about another third of a stop less fill would have been perfect, but considering I am using a new-to-me G9, the images were shot in the middle of shaving and my original intent was to use only the iPhone, I'll take this one as it is!

I am finding the exposure and white balance on the G9 is spot on.  It's on-board flash is pretty much useless though I intend to try it as a wireless transmitter in optical slave mode.  Not sure how it will work since the flashes output will contribute to and contaminate the overall exposure....topic for another blog post.

Exposing to the right side of the Histogram...

In a recent workshop a question was asked regarding the best way expose in RAW format.  The question went something like this...   So, if I create two images, one shot at two stops over the metered value and one shot at two stops under the metered value the two stops under will be a better image?  The answer was "yes".  I don't entirely agree.  Ok, let me explain...

Saved by RAW...

Or... How not to BLOW IT!  And if you do, how to make sure you can recover....

There is constant chatter about which file format should be used when creating digital images..  Jpeg?  RAW?  TIFF?  Which is better and why?

Well... it depends.

Few people capture directly to TIFF, so let's leave that out for now.  By far the most common choice is jpeg.  It's easy to share, has very small file sizes and in general requires less work from camera to computer to output (print, web or computer display).  Jpeg's are the result of the camera's automatic processing of the raw data captured by the camera sensor.  A lot of highlight and shadow information the captured by sensor is discarded during this processing as camera's cpu deems it unimportant to the image.  This brings us to the jpegs biggest drawback..  If you want to use some of the information in post production to bring up detail in the shadows or highlights, you can't.. it's on the cutting room floor.

So you need to be dead on with exposure and white balance because there is very little room to work with a jpeg image in post processing.

On the other hand, the RAW file format is, as it's name would lead you to believe, the raw data the camera's sensor has captured....all of it, nothing is discarded.  This leaves a genrous amount lattitude in post processing techniques to utilize the additional information for creative reasons, like High Dynamic Range processing, Double RAW processing or just extending the dynamic range in the image.  Or, to save your butt when you screw up!

As an example..  I live on the Great South Bay.  I see lots of Sea Gulls, plenty of sparrows, an occasional Osprey or Egret but rarely an in-land bird of prey...  So when I spotted a Sharp Shinned Hawk perched in pines at the back end of my property, I immediately grabbed the camera.  But I the last time I had used the D300 I was doing bracketed sets of the Christmas tree and I had unknowingly left the settings that way.  Well, sunlit medium bright bird on a predominately neutral back ground...might need some exposure compensation... long story short, I blew it, I dialed over the bracket set and blew out the image...

If it weren't for having shot in RAW the image would have been trash..if this was my daughter at a dance recital I would be dead meat...  But shooting RAW saved the day..  Below is the before and after...  Not an award winning image, but it proves the point..