Using a Ringflash, Part 1
By sirsnapalot | July 1, 2009
I know this blog has been dormant for a while- my workload has been quite high for me to be able to write well-focused articles. So, perhaps, I should break them down into smaller pieces, that I can post more often. So, here is Part 1 on using a Ring Flash.
I bought a Ring Flash last winter at a camera show in the Dallas area. These camera shows are a great place to buy used equipment at significant discounts. I found a ring flash, something I have wanted for years. For the moment, I don’t have the adapters needed to physically latch it onto my camera, but it will stay on my macro fairly well, as it is a tight fit for that one lens.
A ringflash has several benefits compared to a normal flash. A normal flash, especially a pop-up flash, will create harsh shadows because it is a point source of light. The ringflash is literally a flash that completely encircles the lens. As a result, the flash is more diffuse and so is the shadow- it will have a softer edge. Also, if you are doing macro photography, a ringflash comes in handy for up close lighting, as frequently the camera is blocking ambient light, and side-lighting produces long, harsh shadows. By using a ringflash, you have nice, even illumination.
I will post more on using a ringflash, but here is my first shot using it on my EOS50D. I purposefully positioned my eye so that the reflection of the ringflash from my eye would perfectly encircle the pupil.
Of course the one drawback to a ringflash can actually be the fact that it reflects as a ring- in a serious portrait, you might see the ring reflection as a distraction. For portraiture, it might be better to use the flash off-camera, and use a diffuser, or even multiple flashes for effect. Posts on that will come in the future.
Topics: Flash, Intermediate, Lighting | No Comments »
Perspective
By sirsnapalot | February 22, 2009
One of the reasons I started my 365 project was to learn perspective. I had a tendency to take the same photos over and over, from the same perspective- the height of my head, where I hold the camera up to my face to see the photo I’m about to take. Of course, I knew you were supposed to try different perspectives, but only rarely did I do this.
The Picture365 project, which requires me to take a different photo every day, forces me to be more creative. And that has paid dividends.
Yesterday, for instance, we had a windy and chilly day, but it was sunny and nice otherwise. I decided to try out a new mini-GPS logger for photograph that allows you to geotag your pictures cheaply (more on that in another post), so I set out to downtown Dallas, and decided to focus on an historic old cemetery near downtown. I spent well over an hour there taking photos, and was rather pleased that I was more inventive than usual.
Greenwood Cemetery
You can see in this photo from the headstones, that they are indeed quite old. The perspective here was to show that this cemetery was embedded in the city, so I got onto my stomach on the ground to position one of the surrounding buildings between two old headstones.
Greenwood Cemetery
Similarly, from another spot in the cemetery, I again shot from my stomach to show Cityplace a short distance away. With all the trees in the cemetery, these type of shots will only work in the winter, when the trees are barren. Even so, I had to scout for places where you could see the buildings from grass level, the perspective I wanted to shoot.
Greenwood Cemetery Crape Myrtle
When out on a photo trek, always keep your eye out for anything unusual. The cemetery was full of crape myrtles, which besides being covered in beautiful flowers in the summertime, have striking trunks and branches. The sun was getting low in the sky, and the lighting was dramatic here. In this shot, I am on my back with my hair in the grass, shooting straight upwards.
In this particular shot, I wanted more of the branches, so I took two shots and combined them to make a bigger, wider angle shot, using the Photomerge capability in Photoshop (you can use any stitching software).
While taking these shots, I happened to get lucky, as it turns out that grey foxes live in the cemetery grounds as well.
Greenwood Cemetery Grey Fox
Not that this has anything to do with perspective, but I’m quite happy to have had this unusual opportunity, living in the city as I do (even though I’m in the suburbs and live on a creek, the wildlife menagerie in our backyard does not included foxes).
Once finished, I stopped downtown to grab a few photos of the still-being-built Winspear Opera House, then headed home up the Tollway. I passed by the Mary Kay building in Addison- long one of my favorites. The lighting was so rich in the setting sun, I decided to take some photos of it as well.
Mary Kay Building
For reference, here’s a wide angle shot of the entire building, so you can appreciate its unusual design. But I didn’t just want this “standard” photo of it. I wanted to get some different perspectives.
Mary Kay Building
Again, I happened to get lucky as this plane flew over the building on approach to Addison Airport.
Mary Kay Building
Here I am almost right up against the building. I wanted to capture the sawtooth edge against the blue sky.
Mary Kay Building
The intention here was to simply get a pattern or texture shot, so I isolated just the windows and granite between them, but at an angle for an element of disorientation.
And finally, nearby was a round, mirrored building that very odly reflected the Mary Kay building in its convex facets. I love this shot, not just for the truncated columns of reflection, but also each glass pane distorts its piece of the reflection in a different way.
So when you go out on a photo trek, lay down, look up, and try for extreme perspectives to get some variations and interest in your photo collection. Of course, as with any tool or technique, don’t overuse it- there is plenty of room for the “standard shot”, but you can spice up any collection of photos by having some fun and trying out a different perspetive.
As briefly mentioned, the primary purpose of this trek was to learn how to use my new geotagging device. I will have a separate article on that in the near future.
Topics: Creative, Improvement, Intermediate | No Comments »
New Camera Update
By sirsnapalot | February 1, 2009
Well, one month is past and I’ve been enjoying my new camera- a Canon EOS 50D quite a bit. Pictures are crisper than the Nikon Coolpix, as well as richer in color, enabling me to get much better pictures, especially of the wildlife around my house.
Since we have an indoor/outdoor cat we take care of, named Nadia, we leave out cat food which tends to attract birds, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, etc… which all offer good photo ops.
Because it’s wintertime, the cardinals are especially nice to photograph due to their coloring.
- Male Cardinal
- Female Cardinal
As well, another bird hangs around the front of the house, and seems relatively unafraid of me. I’m not sure what kind of bird it is, but it seems to be young (even though it’s winter) and it hangs out in a small treelike yaupon holly alongside the driveway.
- Small Bird
I look forward to future pictures of the raccoons and opossums as well. Especially the raccoons are playful and imaginative and sometimes almost seem to pose for the shots.
Meanwhile, I’ve been trying out some other shots that I wasn’t able to do very well before- the Moon. The other day, the Moon and Venus were in conjunction, which means they are quite close together in the sky. When the Moon is in crescent mode, you can see the unlit portion faintly as light refected back from Earth illuminates it. It’s called Earthshine and is so evident here and you can see the dark maria on the surface.
- Moon and Venus
Something that is good about a larger sensored camera, is lower noise thresholds. The Canon’s 24mm sensor has so much lower noise levels than my Nikon Coolpix (though higher noise than if I had purchased a more-expensive Nikon 300D) that night shots look black, and not speckled.
And while shooting the Moon and Venus shot, I spotted a spent dandelion, near our spotlights in the yard. That gave me an idea for this shot- I handheld the dandelion so that it was the same size as the spotlight from the camera’s perspective, and used the light to backlight the dandelion. I like both the explosion of light through the puffy seedhead and the thin strip of light on my finger holding the stem.
- Dandelion Seedhead
And finally, I mentioned Nadia, she offers some pretty good photo opportunities herself. I don’t like having an outdoor cat, but she was a stray that adopted us, and in addition, our indoor cat doesn’t like her. So we bring her in at night and she spends at least the warmer days outside (which in Texas is most days). She had been on the roof surveying some yardwork my wife and I were doing, which made for this shot.
- Nadia
Something I like about this picture, besides her gaze and tail curl, is her shadow on the texture of the roof. Strong shadows on a sunny day, which means after sunrise or late in the day, can make for some dramatic photos. With cats, probably as with babies, the best way to get good photos is to shoot many photos and take the best ones. This was probably one of about 5 or so. She has pretty markings, which stand out nicely from the semi-regular pattern in the shingles.
Just wanted to catch up a bit here on what I’ve been doing with the new camera. I have extended my Picture365 project (link on the right) for another year (of which these shots were all part of) so that I can get to know this new, and more complicated (and more capable) camera. I look forward to a lot of new, great pictures, and blog entries as well as I continue my journey to becoming a better photographer.
Topics: Intermediate, Review, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Unimpressed
By sirsnapalot | January 17, 2009
I was just posting some photos to Flickr, and saw some amazing images in a group I was posting to. I visited the picture, and it was immediately obvious to me that the owner mashed several images together to create a fictitious, if beautiful, scene. Let me say up fron that I have no problem with this by itself- I’ve created a few of them myself, and they are fun to do. However, the problem I am having is folks passing these off as photos. Take a look, for example, at this photo (I will only link to them as I doubt they will grant permission to display them openly):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/harmag270/3201738605/
The photos individually are nice, and the job of pasting it together was passable (I would cut down the glow above the falls a bit more). And together, they do look like a dream vacation place. But there is no title, no description, and no keywords to tell you first, where they are located, and secondly, that this is fictitious. And the owner posted them to groups like Super Shots, World’s Best Dazzling Shots, Damn! I Wish I’d Taken That, Photographer’s Paradise, My Camera Never Lies, etc… In fact, this person posted this image to 52 groups. As of this writing, the photo had garnered 187 comments, many with comments such as “Beautiful Shot” and “Wow, another amazing shot from you”.
First, do folks not realize this photo is fake? And second, if you are posting to 52 groups, you are probably not returning the favor of commenting on that many photos in return (who has the time?). And third, there are groups for collages and Photoshop altered images- post to those “dreamworld” groups, not photography groups.
You create these “stunning” images that cheapen those of us who prefer to work hard to get our images in-camera. Again, I do fully accept digital manipulations and the importance of a great image, especially for marketing shots. But passing this type of image off as a photo and not admitting it is a shame.
It also makes me wonder about travel brochures- are some of those images faithful reproductions of what I might plan to visit? Or are they raising a false hope so get my money?
Not to rant on this guy- he does some good work. But his work made me have a bad Flickr moment when I go to post to a group that is photography-based with a real, genuine photo I created in-camera, and see him get all the comments from folks that are clueless that this is not real.
In a digital world, some post=processing is expected. But I limit it to a small amount of tone control, brightness and contrast, and sharpening and cropping, as a digital capture of the world in itself is imperfect and inexact. However, unless I clearly state otherwise, the scene is genuine.
Topics: Opinion | No Comments »
New Camera, time to catch up
By sirsnapalot | December 30, 2008
I’ve been absent for quite a while- I apologize for that. That’s not what I intended when I started this blog in 2007. However, work has been so busy that I’ve been unable to find much time to actually write meaningful articles.
Meanwhile, I intended to catch up over Christmas with the purchase of a new camera, and that went horribly wrong. I bought a Canon EOS 50D Digital SLR- a big move up from my Nikon Coolpix 8800 (itself decent for a point-n-shoot). However, the Canon’s performance was so bad that the older Nikon out-performed it.
Well, today things went right finally. I was able to exchange the camera body and the new one is as near perfect as I could expect, so I think now I can move forward and push my photographic boundaries. Expect some posts soon, and I will also blog about my poor initial experience and how not to get burned yourself.
More soon—
Jeff
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Shapes and Lines
By sirsnapalot | September 26, 2008
The past couple of weeks I have taken some shots specifically for the shapes they contained, rather than the colors and textures. I’ve been traveling a bit for work (plus a wedding), so have been offline for a rather long time.
The first shot I took at a convention in San Francisco. I was admiring the Intercontinental Hotel from a window in the convention center, and when I started to compose this shot (on my cellphone, of all things), I realized I had something that transcended the photo.
Original
I had rectangles, triangles, a trapezoid, and parallel lines, all in a single shot. There weren’t too many- the elements of the photo were rather simple. The above photo is unaltered from the cellphone (a Nokia E66 3mp camera phone).
When I returned home a couple of weeks later, I played with the photo in Photoshop to see if I could achive my abstraction. (I am moderately competent at Photoshop, but by no means an expert.) Posterization was the first thing that came to mind, and I applied that filter (Poster Edges under Artistic) at a level of 6 to simplify the color pallete.
Posterized
I still wasn’t satisfied- the photo was simplified somehwhat, but still contained too much information. I then played with some other tools until I stumbled onto Adjustments->Gradient Map. Bingo! I hit the jackpot, as this did EXACTLY what I wanted. I was able to select a preset pallete (in this case Blue, Red, Yellow) and the image came out perfect.
Gradient Applied
So there you have it- modern art! 
Less than a week later I was in San Antonio for a wedding, and had some time to kill while my wife took an online course for work in the hotel room (nothing like the last minute to get something done!). I went to two of San Antonio’s five missions- San Jose and Concepcion. The Alamo is the most famous, but it’s also the most crowded and smack in downtown. At San Jose I again spotted a scene that was flat, except for the shapes.
Original
I definitely like this shot as-is, especially because of the off-angle framing of the shadows cast by the stacked arches. But I also wanted to give it the Modern Art Treatment as well, so I used exactly the same procedure as on the previous shot, except I chose a different preset pallete. I was pleased again with the results.
Posterized and Gradient Applied
While I am not a fan of massive Photoshop alterations of every picture, I think it definitely has it’s place. And nothing against those who use Photoshop all the time- it’s a perfectly valid art form. However, I am a photographer first and foremost, so like everything else, Photoshop for me is one tool of many. Use it judiciously and the results will be that much more unique.
Topics: Creative, Photoshop | No Comments »
Cellphones #3
By sirsnapalot | August 22, 2008
I’ve decided to make this a regular feature- from time to time I’ll post a few of my best cellphone pictures. Again, while I don’t think they are good enough for general photography- the family vacation or little Timmy’s birthday party, I think you can exploit their characteristics and of course the portability.
This first picture was made just killing some time in a restaurant waiting for more of our group to show up.
Fake Candle
It was a rather silly, fake candle- an LED powered by a battery (and therefore not hot). I place the cellphone camera centered on the “candle” and took the photo with the flash turned on. The blue color of the vase came out, and the “candle” overexposed, creating this simple abstract photo. Having had low expectations, I was surprised at the outcome and rather pleased. So- the key is to just try things, and sometimes you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
The second photo opportunity here was while I was riding my bike. I always carry my cellphone with me when I ride, just in case I have an accident (which in fact happened in 2004- I dislocated my elbow and needed an ambulance to come rescue me).
I noticed I had a crisp, long shadow with the slowly setting sun, so I looked for a stretch of road that was lightly traveled and went back and forth for a while. I took quite a few photos, hoping not to wreck again. I was pretty happy with this result. One fellow on Flickr though it looked like a “penny farthing”- which my British->American dictionary says is a giant tricycle.
This will become a recurring theme as I take interesting cellphone shots- non-standards that complement my “normal” big-camera photography.
Topics: Buying, Cellphone Cameras, Creative, Intermediate | No Comments »
Flying the Friendly Skies
By sirsnapalot | August 15, 2008
Something I have been emphasizing so far is to photograph things from a different perspective. Flying is no exception- though you may fly a lot (I certainly do), you still spend a small percentage of your time in the sky, and it can be a good opportunity to get some great shots.
I recently flew from Dallas to San Francisco and for a change, I had a window seat. I’m a pretty tall guy (nearly 1.9m), so I generally prefer an aisle seat. But, luckily I got a free upgrade to First Class, and a window seat at that. So on approach to San Francisco, we flew over Yosemite. I was sitting to a rather large fellow with some rather smelly habits, so I hesitated to make him get up so I could get my camera. But, as the beautiful terrain kept scrolling by below me I finally had to get up and get the camera. I had missed the best shots over Yosemite, but got some great ones on approach to the San Francisco Airport.
Wetlands near Fremont, CA on San Francisco Bay
San Mateo Bridge
Later in the week on my return flight, I just kept the camera with me in the seat. Conditions were not quite as good over Yosemite, but I did get some good shots over Nevada of some rather strange looking stuff- here an Army ammunition depot.
Hawthorne Army Ammunition Depot, Nevada
In 2006 my wife & I honeymooned in Africa- a lifelong dream of mine to visit. On both the inbound and outbound trips, we flew squarely over the Saraha, what would seem to be a vast, featureless plain. It was anything but, to the trained eye I shot these two shots over the Sudan on the way from London to Nairobi:
Sahara Desert in the Sudan
Sahara Desert in the Sudan
I especially like the second one. From the shadows you can see the wind down there must be brutal most of the time. What I especially like about these aerial Sahara shots are that they look like photos taken by a NASA spacecraft, yet they were taken by me and my Nikon Coolpix 8800 digital camera from the window of a 747, back by the lavatory.
On the return flight from Zambia to London, we took a bit more westward path over the Sahara, taking us over Chad, Libya and Tunisia. The following un-Earthly shots are from those respective countries.
Sahara Desert in Chad
Sahara Desert in Libya
Mediterranean Coastline of Tunisia
When shooting the ground from an airplane, your photos will likely come out a bit flat. You can fix that in a photo editor by adjusting the brightness and contrast. All the shots above (except for the Nevada shot) were contrast enhanced to bring out the detail, but otherwise are unaltered.
The Africa shots are perhaps a bit “out of this world”, but lest you think that you can only get great shots in faraway places, I’ll leave you with two more shots- over Idaho and Tennessee. The clouds themselves can be in endless, fantastic formations and are well-worth photographing if you’ve got the sun at a good angle (behind or in front are the best).
Flying over Idaho
Clouds over Tennessee
So, the next time you fly, just keep your camera stowed under the seat in front of you and be ready shortly after takeoff or until shortly before landing, and of course, during the flight, and get a window seat if you can.
Topics: Tips | 1 Comment »
Fun with Toys
By sirsnapalot | July 18, 2008
A couple of months ago, I picked up a toy at a tradeshow (put on by RIM, the maker of the Blackberry). It was a silly keychain with a bundle of cheap fiber optics coming out one end. Orange, a huge cellular operator in Europe was giving them away.
Fiber Optic Toy
I have given up taking such crap usually because it ends up in the trash. But, this one was different- I knew I could make some use of it with my Picture365 project. You see, I’m always looking for lights or optics that can be useful when you need to be creative and try something different.
In a dark room on evening, I set the camera on a tripod and set it on 2s exposures, with a 3s timer delay so the camera would stop shaking after I pressed the shutter release. During the countdown, I started twirling the fibers in front of the lens, so the motion would be smooth.
The toy color shifts fairly rapidly, and acted as a shifting paintbrush as I painted various shapes onto the photo, looking like some an extremely colorful aurora borealis.
These were probably two of the better ones- some went off the edge of the photo, as you can’t tell precisely where you are going. But the beauty of digital is that you just keep trying, and you’ll get some that come out great!
Topics: Creative | 1 Comment »
Shadowplay
By sirsnapalot | July 13, 2008
I can’t stress enough that if you want to improve your photography and learn to be more creative (yes, you can “learn” creativity), then commit yourself to a Picture365 project and really commit to it. I am in my second year, and I have continued to discover new nuances of photography that extend past the standard point-n-shoot.
I’m a fairly avid exerciser, and despite several injuries in the past few months, I’m still getting out and exercising the parts of my body that aren’t in recovery (broken toe on the mend, and a swimming injury). That involves at the moment a lot of biking and a decent amount of walking (running will return soon). I’ve been taking my camera with me a lot more lately.
As it’s near 100 degrees almost every day now in Dallas, I have pushed the outdoor workouts later into the evening, so it’s frequently dark when I walk. I decided to play around with really long exposures, and took the photos while walking, not even stopping. The exposures were 8s and were obviously handheld.
This is where it pays to experiment- I had no idea of the final effect of this photo. I noticed my shadow extending in front of me as I walked under streetlamps, and thought I’d try to capture that. I positioned the camera fairly still in front of me and fired off the shutter just after I walked under a streetlight, and continued walking for the 8 second exposure. The effect was that the camera relative to my shadow position more or less was the same- that shadow lengthened and changed a bit. The results is the photo below, with the sides overexposed- a shadowy figure awash in a fiery (almost hellish) sodium vapor-lit fog.
I’ll publish some other photos from that similar treks at a future date- there are some creative effects you can do at night with almost no equipment other than you, some good walking shoes, and a camera. No tripod required!
Topics: Creative | No Comments »
