Tag Archives: photography

CES 2025

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The Consumer Electronics Show

I’ve attended CES for many years.

Going back to the mid 1970s we atteneded CES as an exhibitor. Our company ABACUS faithfully exhibited at the Las Vegas venue showing our software and books to the trade and computer enthusiasts.

Since 1975 my guess is that I’ve been to the CES Show about 35 times.

Abacus bowed out about 2010, but I’ve continued to attend the show as an industry participant. My nerdy interests have kept me going back to learn about new and upcoming electronic gadgets of all shapes and sizes.

We started Stay Focused as a website to write books and articles about technical and photographic products.

This year management estimated that 4,500 exhibitors greeted more than 140,000 attendees this year. It remains one of the largest conventions in the USA.

Following this article I’ve written several “reports” on some of the products that I learned about at CES. I hope the articles give you a sense of the exciting products that were exhibited this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.

Written by:

Arnie Lee

Quick Flight Home

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I just returned from a trip west from our home in Michigan. As usual I had my camera with me to record some of the events during the flight back from Denver.

This is our aircraft at the gate in Denver. It is a Boeing B737 Max.

I’m always hoping for clear, cloudless skies. During the flight I’m continuously looking out of the window at the scenery below. One of my “hobbies” is to photograph airports from above. It’s relatively easy to spot an airport because of the long, straight runways which stand out from the surrounding scenery.

This is the Ankeny Regional Airport. It is located a few miles north of Des Moines, Iowa.

Our flight took a route that was close to a straight line from Denver to Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is relatively easy to determine the location of the plane from the map that is displayed on the seat back screen.

Our aircraft was equipped with seat back displays. One of the view options is to show the flight progress. This helps to identify the scenery as I take photos from the plane’s window.

By referring to the seat back display I was able to look for landmarks that help me determine the area below.

This is the Monticello Regional Airport located northeast of Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Here is the Kenosha Airport. It is located in Wisconsin just north of the Illinois state line.

Less than a minute after passing the Kenosha Airport, we started the flight across Lake Michigan.

What you see here is the southeast coast of Wisconsin.

Our plane landed about fifteen minutes later after crossing Lake Michigan. Clouds over our home in Grand Rapids prevented me from taking any further photos of the scenery below.

As an “aviation nerd” I simply enjoy taking picture during these flights.

For those of you who might wonder how I can know the name of the airports in the photos that I take from 35,000 feet or so, please refer to an article at my other website https://stayfocusedpress.com/?p=13070

Written by:

Arnie Lee

How Dye Transfer Works

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A Simplified Expanation

If you got here by accident, you can read about my experience with dye transfer by going here.

NOTE: One of the overriding requirement for making a dye transfer print is to keep the three component colors (sometimes four if you add black for deep saturation) in perfect alignment. This is referred to as “registration”.

Color Separations Depending on the size of the transparency we use a 4″x5″ enlarger such as the one to the right or a larger 8″x10″ model. The original transparency is placed into the enlarger and projected through a red filter to make a negative on the monochrome film. Next the image is projected through a green filter to make a second negative and finally through a blue filter to make a third negative. Between exposures the enlarger is held totally immovable to maintain registration. Ahead of time the film is “punched” (similar to a paper punch) and placed onto an immoveable film holder so that all three exposures are in exact alignment. The three negatives are developed using conventional black and white chemicals.
To adjust the brilliance of the print a set of highlight negatives are similarly made. Here the exposures are quite short to produce a faint mask of only the brightest areas of the image – one each for the red, green and blue spectrum of the original. As its name suggests, this mask reduces the amount of exposure to the the image highlights.

A transparency has a very wide range of light values (brightness to shadow). Since it’s not possible to reproduce such a wide range, we have to make a set of contrast reducing negatives – again through red, green and blue filters.

The next step is to expose the gelatin coated mats. The thickness of the gelatin depends on the amount of exposure it receives. Each color negative is sandwiched with the corresponding contrast reducing and highlight masks and projected onto the mat material. Three mats are exposed one using the red filter negative, one using the green filter negative and the third using the blue filter negative. The mats are developed in a special tanning developer and when washed in hot water leaves a dye-absorbing gelatin surface.

The red filter mat is soaked in a cyan dye, the green filter mat in a magenta dye and the blue filter mat in a yellow dye. The amount of dye each mat absorbs depends on the thickness (and therefore exposure) of the gelatin. The mats are successively rolled onto the white photo surface using familiar registration techniques with the cyan, magenta and yellow dyes. The result is the dye transfer image.

You’ll find more detailed information about the dye transfer process than I am able to provide by clicking here.