Form submitted successfully, thank you.

Error submitting form, please try again.

Efcubed Photography bio picture

Welcome to the Efcubed Photography Blog!

Roger A. Dallman Jr.    Roger started in photography in 1979, as a secondary job in the Army.  He shot "grip and grins" and Army events.  He began shooting portraits and weddings on the side for extra camera gear money.  He won several photo contests and an Army journalism award.  After career assignment changes, he put the cameras aside and sold his darkroom equipment. In 2006, he bought his first digital camera before a trip to Europe and was hooked again. 

Today he is a dedicated Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop user-advocate and NAPP member.  He is active in photography groups and teaches digital darkroom techniques.  He prefers to shoot portaits away from seamless paper and static lighting.  He is also a photo retoucher and restores old photos - a handy skill when working on his genealogy hobby.

Mark B. Segal.    Mark started shooting when he was 13 and has done it off and on since then.  As a Navy brat and then Naval Officer, I got to go to interesting places.  I wish I had taken my camera more often.  I love the way the camera allows you to dissect the world and shape what people see of it.  Photoshop and Lightroom are great tools to help capture what you thought you saw from behind the lens. 

I love helping people salvage and restore their photographic memories as links to their past.  The patience and dedication needed are usually far beyond what the images are worth, except to the person who owns the picture.  Seeing the smile or tears from when you've brought back an image from the cracked, torn and faded pile is a reward in and of itself. 

Author Archives: Mark

ISO, Noise and Lightroom

Noise lives in the dark parts of our photographs.  All those little random dots of color which appear in parts of your images are just random data, when the camera sensor doesn’t have enough information to capture a picture.  This last weekend I got to visit my folks and attend an unusual reunion.  All the...

View full post »

Lens Profiles in Adobe Lightroom 3

Between work and trying to think of something to write about now that I finished the Greece series, I realized that there was one feature in the new Lightroom 3.0, which really has made a visible difference in the processed images.    All lenses have a degree of distortion.  One of the reasons expensive lenses are...

View full post »

The Sun Sets on the Greece Vacation

Well, I’m finally coming to the last topic from the last magical spot on my trip.  Santorini sits perched on the cliff top remains of the volcano that exploded some 3600 years ago, wiping out most of the civilizations in the Eastern Med.  The buildings literally are built down the walls of the caldera. Our hotel...

View full post »

We Can Never Forget

This blog represents something different from our usual light-hearted look at photography.  We’ll get back to those, next time, but this is a serious look at one of the most memorable parts of the trip to Greece.  We pulled into the walled fortress city of Rhodes early in the morning.  During my pre-trip research I...

View full post »

Faces of Greece

    It is no secret that Roger is a better people photographer than I am.  He has been making environmental portraits for a long time.  One of the reason’s our partnership works is that we are um, slightly competitive, but always in a positive way.  We each try to learn from the other without...

View full post »

Why are you shooting pictures of your hand? Shooting for Panoramas

One of the most amazing features of Photoshop ever since CS3 is the ability to create seamless panoramic images pretty much effortlessly. The tools inside Lightroom make managing the photos easy as well. Panos can capture the majestic vistas of a skyline, or give you much more detail of things you have a tough time...

View full post »

Windmills of Mykonos, or Patience Pays Off

In every popular tourist site, there are iconic images which have to be shot. The challenge is to capture those places in a way that is personal and just different enough to make interesting photographs.

View full post »

Metering and Compensating in Mykonos

The island of Mykonos has got to be one of the loveliest places to visit.  It is so picturesque, everything is painted white and you have the blazing sun.  Hmmm sounds like a real challenge to photograph and capture any detail.  Almost exactly like shooting in snow, the bright white can overwhelm your camera so there...

View full post »