12
July
2009

Information for models (Brno, Czech Republic)

Do you like my photographs? Would you like to create something similar? Are you from Brno? Then the following text is for you (only in Czech language).


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8
February
2010

Lady with a whip

… this time with a light setup photo.

IMG_5215
IMG_5202


You can easily see three lights with the fourth one being the big box on the left. All of them are powered by older external camera flashes fired by Elinchrom Skyport radio triggers (see my review).

27
January
2010

Roses and details

Lips and roses
Roses and more
25
January
2010

Review of Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP 30-inch monitor

Dell 3008WFP

About a month ago I bought a new monitor to replace still very good 20″ LCD (ViewSonic 2030b), which was getting a bit small for me. For common work the older resolution of 1600×1200 is enough, but for retouching photographs and watching movies/TV the larger monitor surface is always better. My choice was a 30″ monitor with resolution 2560 x 1600 pixels. After a long time deciding between several brands and monitor types I finally went for Dell 3008WPF wide-gamut monitor, due to pretty good review on other sites. I have an A03 revision – Dell started with A00, so this is the fourth revision available. I am now using this monitor for several weeks in various applications and I would like to share my findings here.


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7
January
2010

Sitting/laying nude

Nude03

It is now possible to buy this photo as a poster, framed print etc. at RedBubble here.

6
January
2010

Same series – another photo

Nude02

It is now possible to buy this photo as a poster, framed print etc. at RedBubble here.

5
January
2010

New black&white nude

Nude01
7
December
2009

Black sleeves / red scarf

Small update with new photos:

Standing nude with red scarf
Nude with black sleeves
Earrings
Sitting nude with red scarf
23
November
2009

Turning Living Room into a Studio

If you ever wondered how a DIY studio looks like, here is a short video showing how I set it up (30 times faster then reality).

1
November
2009

Review of efillink – a third-party ink for Epson printers

One year ago I bought an Epson Stylus Photo 1400 which is a dye-based printer capable of delivering photographic quality prints up to A3+ paper size (in the USA this is called “Super B”; the actual size is 13″ x 19″ or 329 x 483 mm). The printer is using six cartridges of Epson’s Claria inks.

Cost savings

The print quality is very high, but so is the price of the original inks. I have therefore bought also a third-party ink called “efillink” from inkfillshop. This allowed me to reduce cost of the ink by more than 90 % (really!). Of course, there are some differences between the Claria and third-party ink, but I wanted to know how big the differences really are and here are my findings:

Differences when printed

Right after the printing, the results are virtually identical (both printed on Epson Glossy or Premium Glossy Photo Paper). There is a very small difference in color rendition, that might be fixed by using slightly different color profile, but for most practical purposes the changes in colors are negligible (and you have to compare the prints to find them), so this might only worry you if you strive to get exact colors. To tell the truth, I even liked the efillink colors better :)

Water durability

However, the Claria ink is more durable. It starts with the resistance against the water, whether it is cold, hot or even oily. I have tried them all :) and the result was only a slight color bleeding. The efillink is also surprisingly good, but the bleeding is more pronounced.

Longevity

The longevity is another issue. I have already read that Claria outlives the efilling, but I have made my own test – I put the two prints near the window and left them there for one year. I used that window, so there were mostly shielded from the sun by the glass, but often not and a few times several raindrops fell on them (I had already learnt that this basically doesn’t matter).
The results after one year in such an extreme conditions:
Claria vs. 3rd part ink (efillink)  after one year of often sun exposure (photo by Vit Kovalcik)
The Claria ink is on the left, the efillink on the right. Claria has barely changed, it looks like a fresh print. Please ignore the triangular shape on the right photo, it is a ruler that was used to weight down the paper.

Another prints made with efillink were stored in drawer. This seem to be intact, although I haven’t made identical Claria prints, so there is nothing I can compare it to and I am not sure if I hadn’t made any pre-print adjustments in the image, so I cannot reliably test it by printing it again. Anyway, for my eyes it seems to be perfectly fine.

Conclusion

The efillink will not disappoint if you won’t store your prints on direct sunlight. Putting them in a dark place is ok and in my opinion framing them and putting them behind a glass helps too, but I haven’t made this test. I wouldn’t sell prints made with this ink, but it is perfectly acceptable for my personal usage. Considering the enormous cost savings it is a good alternative to the original Epson’s Claria ink.

If you have any comments or your own experience with a third-party ink I will be glad to hear it!

Update

Interesting comment by Mark McCormick considering the lightfastness appearead in a DPReview thread about this article:
“Unless your print was placed directly in a south facing window in a place like Florida or Arizona, your 1 year condition is not as harsh as it may sound. Your prints very likely received no more than 5-10 megalux hours exposure (equivalent to about 2.5-5 WIR display years or about 10-20 Kodak display years). I noted what appears to be very easily noticeable fading in the effilink and a just noticeable amount of fade in the Claria in your test.

The moral of the story is that this third party replacement ink is indeed no match in lightfastness to the Claria ink, and even the Claria ink is showing subtle changes well before its industry-sponsored 90+ year ratings would suggest. That said, if one takes care to reduce illumination levels on a print, even relatively fugitive dyes can go many years on display without showing serious amounts of fade. “

27
October
2009

Autumn forest

Mysterious road in autumn forest.
Two layers of trees in an autumn forest.
Autumn trees quickly disappearing in a fog.
IMG_4011
Autumn forest with nearby road. Focus is on leaf.