I know, I know....you came to look at a blog post about photography.
And there are no damn pictures on the latest post?
What in THE hell is up with that, you ask.
The internet at the airport sucks ass.
Yup, free internet that doesn't work. Can you imagine such a thing? I have half a mind to demand my money back....oh...yeah...shit.
Well, never fear! I have three, count 'em three, posts already written with the pictures to go with them ready to go. (You know, for the most part, hey...it's me here.)
Upcoming posts include:
1. Your camera isn't a piece of shit and here's why!
2. HDR (or High Dynamic Range) photography? What in the hell is THAT?
3. Not good enough for the website but it'll do for the blog pictures, or Guinness induced photography.
Also, if you got here from my Facebook page, I told you you'd be disappointed.
Stay tuned!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
What is HDR photography?
You might have heard of HDR photography.
Then you wondered, what is it? What does that mean?
Why are you asking me? I'm not an expert. I've done a whole two pictures in this technique.
Would you settle for a layperson explanation? Too bad, your are gonna have to settle.
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. Have you ever noticed that if you take a picture of something that is both very dark and very bright that the picture doesn't show the detail that your eye saw at the time?
In photography light is measured in "stops" of light. Your eye sees about 16 stops of light. The best camera on the market sees only about 6-7 stops. Lot of loss there, huh?
So, to get a good full range, you slap that camera on the tripod and take the same picture a bunch of times.
BUT...you expose each picture at a different stop of light, some overexposed to get the highlights:
and underexposed to get shadow detail and deep colors:
As well as a normal exposure:
You can see how each picture has a little bit of detail in certain areas that the other does not. As well as way over/under exposed parts, but that's what software is for, to weed out the unwanted. Now, if they only made software to weed out other dim bulbs in my life....
You can take as few as 2 and as many as say, 9 pictures. I did five for this one as you can see.
It's called bracketing. Most DSLRs have this feature built in, but it's not hard to do if it doesnt. You just shoot as described, a few overexposed and a few underexposed.
After the shots, you let the software do the heavy lifting. Photoshop will do the trick just fine, though there are dedicated programs out there just for this technique.
Then after a bit of further post processing to sharpen, add contrast and bring out the colors a bit you get something like this:
Or this:
Of course these aren't the best examples out there, but you get the idea. It's a great way to finally get that picture that your eye saw and your camera couldn't capture!
Then you wondered, what is it? What does that mean?
Why are you asking me? I'm not an expert. I've done a whole two pictures in this technique.
Would you settle for a layperson explanation? Too bad, your are gonna have to settle.
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. Have you ever noticed that if you take a picture of something that is both very dark and very bright that the picture doesn't show the detail that your eye saw at the time?
In photography light is measured in "stops" of light. Your eye sees about 16 stops of light. The best camera on the market sees only about 6-7 stops. Lot of loss there, huh?
So, to get a good full range, you slap that camera on the tripod and take the same picture a bunch of times.
BUT...you expose each picture at a different stop of light, some overexposed to get the highlights:
and underexposed to get shadow detail and deep colors:
As well as a normal exposure:
You can take as few as 2 and as many as say, 9 pictures. I did five for this one as you can see.
It's called bracketing. Most DSLRs have this feature built in, but it's not hard to do if it doesnt. You just shoot as described, a few overexposed and a few underexposed.
After the shots, you let the software do the heavy lifting. Photoshop will do the trick just fine, though there are dedicated programs out there just for this technique.
Then after a bit of further post processing to sharpen, add contrast and bring out the colors a bit you get something like this:
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Crop it! How to make the cut
Sometime you take that picture thinking, "Man, that's gonna look awesome!"
And it does.
Sort of.
But....it looks so small in the picture.
Maybe you couldn't get close enough, didn't have the right lens on or handy or if you're using a point and shoot, this was all the further it would zoom in.
Well don't pitch that picture in the trash JUST yet...
Let's crop it!
First, your computer shrinks the picture to fit your screen, so whether you're using something as fancy as Photoshop or just the basic photo editor most computers come with stock, open the picture at 100%. Even online photo sharing sites like Photobucket have this feature.
This lets you see how much detail is really in that picture and if it's really in focus.
Let's say it looks good, now crop it.
Remember some of the rule/guidelines of composition like Rule of Thirds, Leading Lines and such so it makes a good picture. Get that picture you saw in your head when you were shooting!
Know your gear too. If you're using a lower megapixel camera and you crop it too much your going to get what's called "noise" or what was called "grain" for those of us old enough to have shot with film. If you crop it too much and start to get noise, it'll look like this:
Eh, that might pass for "artsy" and I like artsy...from time to time. But that's not what we're going for here.
But with a simple crop we can get this:
That's better!
Let go out on a limb and say your gear held out and your shooting was good enough to get a decent picture...
Let's crop it again:
This is the "I was so damn close to him that I couldn't even get all of his wings in the shot!" picture.
Your friend's jaws will drop at this. They'll ask you how in the hell you did this, how could you possibly have gotten this close???
This is where you shrug your shoulder and sniff. "Oh, you know, just skill."
They stare at you in amazement and ask to buy a print. (Hopefully, right?) And all you did was crop it. Suddenly, it's a whole new picture!
And you were getting ready to throw this one out. For shame on you! You're breaking you're mother's heart because you're not using your brain, you know that, right?
So put that noodle to work and do some creative cropping!
Click on that bitch. Look at it. It catches your eye doesn't it?
That's because it's a unique perspective. It's something people aren't used to seeing and that grabs attention.
You hear that? That's the sound of your mother's heart breaking because you were ready to throw this out instead of making a piece of art that she could be proud of you for.
Shame on you.
So, what did I do with mine?
This:
And it does.
Sort of.
But....it looks so small in the picture.
Maybe you couldn't get close enough, didn't have the right lens on or handy or if you're using a point and shoot, this was all the further it would zoom in.
Well don't pitch that picture in the trash JUST yet...
Let's crop it!
First, your computer shrinks the picture to fit your screen, so whether you're using something as fancy as Photoshop or just the basic photo editor most computers come with stock, open the picture at 100%. Even online photo sharing sites like Photobucket have this feature.
This lets you see how much detail is really in that picture and if it's really in focus.
Let's say it looks good, now crop it.
Remember some of the rule/guidelines of composition like Rule of Thirds, Leading Lines and such so it makes a good picture. Get that picture you saw in your head when you were shooting!
Know your gear too. If you're using a lower megapixel camera and you crop it too much your going to get what's called "noise" or what was called "grain" for those of us old enough to have shot with film. If you crop it too much and start to get noise, it'll look like this:
Eh, that might pass for "artsy" and I like artsy...from time to time. But that's not what we're going for here.
But with a simple crop we can get this:
That's better!
Let go out on a limb and say your gear held out and your shooting was good enough to get a decent picture...
Let's crop it again:
This is the "I was so damn close to him that I couldn't even get all of his wings in the shot!" picture.
Your friend's jaws will drop at this. They'll ask you how in the hell you did this, how could you possibly have gotten this close???
This is where you shrug your shoulder and sniff. "Oh, you know, just skill."
They stare at you in amazement and ask to buy a print. (Hopefully, right?) And all you did was crop it. Suddenly, it's a whole new picture!
And you were getting ready to throw this one out. For shame on you! You're breaking you're mother's heart because you're not using your brain, you know that, right?
So put that noodle to work and do some creative cropping!
Click on that bitch. Look at it. It catches your eye doesn't it?
That's because it's a unique perspective. It's something people aren't used to seeing and that grabs attention.
You hear that? That's the sound of your mother's heart breaking because you were ready to throw this out instead of making a piece of art that she could be proud of you for.
Shame on you.
So, what did I do with mine?
This:
How to piss off the wife (and shoot small stuff)
I've been to Afghanistan.
Had car bombs go off, experienced incoming rockets, flown in helicopters, rode in ground convoys through Taliban Central.
Yawn.
Nothing makes my blood run cold like the icy death stare the wife has. I visualize a little Doomsday Clock with exactly how long I have left to live. Funny, the measurement of time is always in seconds...
"Hey baby, I'm going to go shooting at the Butterfly Pavilion tomorrow while you're at work."
Ooops. 30...29...28...27...
"And I'm taking your camera with me."
[Warning...time reset!] ...5...4...3... Shit.
Well, now that I've shared how to piss off the wife, let's talk about shooting small stuff. Why her camera? Don't I have a perfectly good one of my own?
Turns out I do. But....
There are two ways I like to shoot small stuff.
1. A macro lens. Get right in there, count the nose hairs, get amazing detail/depth of field type of lens.
2. A large(ish) telephoto lens. Stand back, get great subject isolation type of lens.
So I took my life in my own hands and took Emily's camera with me. Her D300 has cropped sensor that acts as kind of built in teleconverter and gives my 70-200mm telephoto lens just a little bit more reach.
Which gave me a shot like this:
Nice...the D3oo misses daddy, doesn't it?
[Warning!] 45...44...43...42... Uh-oh. Ok, moving right along...
I also took my D700 with me and had my 105mm macro lens on it. This gave me the versatility to shoot both ways at the drop of my sweaty hat. Those little buggers move fast. Sometimes there's hardly time to raise a camera up let alone change a lens!
It's also easier on the gear. Nikon makes some great stuff and you can pretty much shoot in the rain with the a fore mentioned gear and not worry about ruining it. But if you are switching lenses and the overhead mist kicks on and sprays the inside of you camera? Not so much.
This also prevents from dropping a lens on accident (As long as you're using your camera strap). I'm a paramedic and I've experienced many nasty things, but nothing makes me want to throw up like hearing the sound of one of my lenses hitting concrete.
The 105 Macro is an amazing lens. My buddy Jason said he was counting blood vessels in his dog's nose on one of the first pictures he took with his. Yeah, it's that good.
Like....this good:
You can't count the blood vessels in his nose, mostly because he don't have one, but you get the picture.
"Hi baby, I'm back from shooting! I hope you had as much fun at work as I did today!"
[Warning!] 60...59...58...
"Guess what? They have a "Tripod Time" and a "Sunset Stroll" time where they just let in a few photographers and kick everyone else out. We'll put our name on the list and go next time I'm home!"
"Really? OK!" [Clock has paused]
For those of you who didn't read the post and just looked at the pictures...I can dig it. Check out more pictures from this shoot in my featured gallery on my website!
More pictures, less words!
Had car bombs go off, experienced incoming rockets, flown in helicopters, rode in ground convoys through Taliban Central.
Yawn.
Nothing makes my blood run cold like the icy death stare the wife has. I visualize a little Doomsday Clock with exactly how long I have left to live. Funny, the measurement of time is always in seconds...
"Hey baby, I'm going to go shooting at the Butterfly Pavilion tomorrow while you're at work."
Ooops. 30...29...28...27...
"And I'm taking your camera with me."
[Warning...time reset!] ...5...4...3... Shit.
Well, now that I've shared how to piss off the wife, let's talk about shooting small stuff. Why her camera? Don't I have a perfectly good one of my own?
Turns out I do. But....
There are two ways I like to shoot small stuff.
1. A macro lens. Get right in there, count the nose hairs, get amazing detail/depth of field type of lens.
2. A large(ish) telephoto lens. Stand back, get great subject isolation type of lens.
So I took my life in my own hands and took Emily's camera with me. Her D300 has cropped sensor that acts as kind of built in teleconverter and gives my 70-200mm telephoto lens just a little bit more reach.
Which gave me a shot like this:
Nice...the D3oo misses daddy, doesn't it?
[Warning!] 45...44...43...42... Uh-oh. Ok, moving right along...
I also took my D700 with me and had my 105mm macro lens on it. This gave me the versatility to shoot both ways at the drop of my sweaty hat. Those little buggers move fast. Sometimes there's hardly time to raise a camera up let alone change a lens!
It's also easier on the gear. Nikon makes some great stuff and you can pretty much shoot in the rain with the a fore mentioned gear and not worry about ruining it. But if you are switching lenses and the overhead mist kicks on and sprays the inside of you camera? Not so much.
This also prevents from dropping a lens on accident (As long as you're using your camera strap). I'm a paramedic and I've experienced many nasty things, but nothing makes me want to throw up like hearing the sound of one of my lenses hitting concrete.
The 105 Macro is an amazing lens. My buddy Jason said he was counting blood vessels in his dog's nose on one of the first pictures he took with his. Yeah, it's that good.
Like....this good:
You can't count the blood vessels in his nose, mostly because he don't have one, but you get the picture.
"Hi baby, I'm back from shooting! I hope you had as much fun at work as I did today!"
[Warning!] 60...59...58...
"Guess what? They have a "Tripod Time" and a "Sunset Stroll" time where they just let in a few photographers and kick everyone else out. We'll put our name on the list and go next time I'm home!"
"Really? OK!" [Clock has paused]
For those of you who didn't read the post and just looked at the pictures...I can dig it. Check out more pictures from this shoot in my featured gallery on my website!
More pictures, less words!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Back from the dead.
Well, I never really died.The blog kinda did. The usual reasons.
Creative slump, not enough time, lack of material, busy looking for work, busy with work...
Yeah, ok, and I'm a lazy ass.
This post is proof of life of our blog.
Also as proof of life, I like to share this picture from the bayous of Louisiana, where I am working as a medic on the clean up crews.
As always, nature prevails and life finds a way.
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