What’s Your Specialty or Passion?
By sirsnapalot | March 12, 2010
I imagine most photographers and budding photographers have a preferred subject matter when it comes to taking pictures. There are lots of genres, and each can take a while to become comfortable with, and a long time to become an expert at them.
Of the genres I can think of off the top of my head, my specialty areas from approximately from strongest to weakest:
- 3D
- Nature
- Macro
- Architecture
- Abstract
- Product
- Still Life
- People
- High Speed
- Astrophotography
If I think of others, I’ll come back and edit them in.
3D is a special case- as with the exception of Astrophotography, all the other areas can be photographed in 3D. I list it tops because my www.3dphoto.net website is #1 in Google for 3D photography, and has been for over a decade, so I’ll take that as an endorsement! 
Nature, though, as pure subject matter goes, is my best and favorite, and my “comfort zone.” I know it very well, and take very good nature photos. I know a lot of tricks to get better shots, and am now trying to learn HDR to push it even further. Every genre has its own, special techniques that you can learn to push the envelope, and HDR is one such tool especially for Nature.
Haleakala Crater, Hawaii- one of my best Nature shots
Macro has moved up a lot this year- I have gotten very good at it and can take some amazing shots, and have learned various techniques to push into the micro realm and improve the quality as well. I still have a ways to go, but I’ve made a lot of improvements the past year, to the point I can at least image down to 1000x magnification (quality is poor at that level, though).
Hibiscus Stigma- one of my better Macro shots
I do OK with architecture, though I do not have Tilt/Shift lens that would make for higher quality work. I could stand to learn better techniques as well and learn more what makes a better architectural picture. Right now it’s based largely on personal choice, and that’s not always a good barometer.
Ohio State Capitol- one of my better architecture shots
Abstract photography is just that- it can be a texture, some formless light, or even fairly specific, but abstract in nature that the picture doesn’t necessarily have a point. To take them, you can meticulously set up the scene for a pre-desired effect, or you can be completely whimsical. Abstract can offer a lot of so-what freedom in taking pictures, and experimentation- any experimentation, is helpful. Try moving the camera while the shutter is open, or severely over- or under-expose the shot. Basically, try breaking all the so-called rules.
Fun with food coloring (Liquid Octopus)- One of my best abstract shots
Product photography is something I’ve picked up in the last two years from nothing. Basically, I pick a “product”- could be a nice wine bottle, a small glass scultpure, or anything around the house, and I attempt to take a good photo of it- magazine good, that is. That is far more difficult than it sounds. You really need to control the lighting environment, and this takes some extra work- either equipment or some good DIY materials, to diffuse shadows and eliminate unwanted reflections. I did make a breakthrough at Christmas with the purchase of a fairly cheap lightbox and some black and white plexiglass sheets, but still have a ways to go.
Product Photo Experiment
Still Life I’m ranking below product photography. With products, you just pick a “product” and try to take the best photo you can. With Still Life shots, you need to compose a scene that looks nice. So, in addition to many of the limitations of product photography, you also have to add some imagination, and I need to work on that.
Movement In Still Life- an early example my experiments in Still Life
I put people almost last- I suck at it. I hate photographing people, but I like it when I take a good (and rare) people picture. It makes me nervous (not talking snapshot party pics here, but good people pictures). I have never hired a model, and feel self conscious photographing strangers (so-called Street Photography). And then there is studio photography- lighting is of paramount importance there. I do plan on exploring aspects of people photography. Years ago a friend of mine (a very people-oriented friend) referred to my vacation pictures as “trees and rocks”, as I avoided having people in them. Though I still have yet to explore this genre, I have taken his comments to heart and will get to it.
My Wife- one of my better "people shots"
High speed photography can be fascinating- capturing brief, passing instances and freezing the moment for posterity. It’s tricky, requiring either a very fast shutter speed, and/or a good flash unit. If you use a bright, constant light, then fast shutter speed is the way to capture if. Otherwise, you can use a fast flash in a darker room. By its nature, it’s generally difficult, and you have to try and refine your techniques and processes. But the satisfaction of getting that cool shot is well worth it once you succeed (I know I was ecstatic when I got this balloon shot last summer).
Water Balloon Burst- one of my best High Speed shots
And last, is Astrophotography. It is here because it is difficult and I have devoted very little time to it. I can take star trail shots, and I have a good telescope, but I have not attempted to take a photo through it in a long, long time- I got one good one (moon photo) many years ago with a film camera, and did not replicate that experiment. It takes a lot of practice to get good at this. I will play with it in the future, but I doubt I will become an expert, especially as good as a friend of mine at work- Alvaro Vacquero, whose work can be seen here.
The Moon- my best Astrophoto (from film)
This of course is not the best shot- it was taken on film many, many years ago, through my 17″ Dobsonian telescope. I built an adapter out of commonly available PVC and a simple Canon reversing ring to attach the camera. This is direct eyepiece projection onto the film- there was no lens on the camera. The telescope served as a massive telephoto. I’ve not taken a thru-the-telescope shot since, but a friend of mine recently borrowed my telescope (I have a different one now) and has had some luck with it.
Of course there are many more specialty areas of photography, such as wedding (people), art, abstract, etc…
I’ll expand individually (or have already done so) on the individual categories above in future blogs. My main point is everyone has specialty areas- I’d encourage you to write them down in approximate order of strongest to weakest. Then pick a category from lower on the list and try to get better at it. The challenge will breathe new life into your photography as you incrementally get better and better.
My goal is to become better at all, gradually. I switch around to different subjects from time to time to keep the passion going.
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UV or not UV?
By sirsnapalot | March 3, 2010
Yesterday I had a sales guy try to pressure me into a UV filter for a 10-22mm wide angle zoom lens. In the days of film, these were commonplace, though I personally never used one. Film, at least, was sensitive to the UV portion of the spectrum and could at higher altitudes, make the picture look bluer.
Digital cameras are almost opposite- they are sensitive at the infrared end of the spectrum, but that is filtered inside the camera, lest your pictures come out to reddish. A UV filter for a digital camera serves no purpose other than “to protect the lens”. Thank you, but in all my years, I have not scratched a lens. And why would I put an extra piece of glass on an expensive lens? It is only going to create more opportunities for specular reflections- the sun, streetlights, etc…, which unless photographed straight on, will bounce around between the glass surfaces that have air space between them and give you sun dogs.
So, my general advice is, unless you are hard on your optics, forgo the extra expense.
Incidentally, the vendor was Abe’s of Maine. They do have good prices on many products, and I have ordered several digital cameras over the years. However, they will not place the order until they talk to you on the phone to “verify a few things,” which inexorably leads to an attempt to upsell you a filter kit and whatnot.
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HDR- Rights and Wrongs
By sirsnapalot | February 28, 2010
I have yet to do a write-up on HDR, but before I go down that road, I want to go on-record and say that HDR is *way* too much overused. There are sites like Stuck In Customs where nearly every shot is in HDR. While I like the effect and think he is a great photographer, HDR is but one tool in your toolbox. I much prefer the bulk of HDR to be more subtle.
I run a 3D Photography forum at http://www.3dphoto.net/forum, and one of the members (Carl Wilson, aka Sleightman) there posted this picture (in 3D- I present it here in 2D by his permission):
Great HDR by Carl Wilson- click on image to view in Flickr
The great thing about this shot is that it does not go into the unnatural look. The human eye is capable of much more visual range than is any film or digital camera. HDR is simply a way to claw back some of what we see in the real world. It is, in effect, compressing the picture, which is why it can easily be overblown.
In Carl’s shot- you have a challenging lighting situation. There is a bright, setting sun that he was shooting directly into. And, you have the shadow of the tree on the grass in the foreground. When standing there, the eye will see details in all parts, but the camera will not. If Carl set the exposure for the sunset, the grass would be nearly featureless in the shadows. If he exposed for grassy details, the sunset would be overexposed and blown out. So, if I recall from his explanation, Carl shot 3 exposures- one optimum scene-averaged exposure, plus an exposure above and below that setting. This produced three shots where different areas of the picture were optimized for details- one in the grass (the overexposed one), one for mid-level lighting (the optimum one) and one for the clouds around the setting sun (the underexposed one). Then he used Photomatix (the more powerful HDR processing solution) to generate this image using the best of all three images. Photomatix has a number of sliders, too, that let you pick just how you want to optimize this final image.
Here, in Carl’s shot, you have good detail in the clouds, and great detail and color in the grass, so you truly have the best of both worlds, and an image that is not overly processed and still retains a natural look about it. It helps that he also had great composition and subject matter here.
I am just beginning my exploration of HDR, so will post more blogs entries over time. I am debating to use Photoshop’s Merge To HDR feature vs. the more powerful (due to specialization) tool Photomatix ($99). In the future, I will try to create some “overblown” HDR’s to show as examples.
I decided to post this entry based on this posting: http://digital-photography-school.com/25-oustanding-landscape-photos-of-various-types-on-imagekind. I was a bit concerned that I was directed to 25 outstanding landscape photos, when in fact, many (but not all) of these are over-processed. Read the comments below lest you think I am alone in my thoughts here. They are nice images, but are not even close to representative in many cases.
My goal in photography is to learn as many techniques and tricks as possible, and to learn them well. Then, I plan to put those tips and tricks into my “Toolbox” and know when to apply one or the other, or even a combination. (This mirrors my professional life- I never became a specialist in any one area. I get bored too easily. I like knowing a lot of about a lot of things, then mixing and matching as I go along to keep life as interesting as possible.)
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DSLR’s and Macro- Sensor Reflection Problem
By sirsnapalot | February 24, 2010
Since I’ve been doing extreme macro lately, I’ve run into a perplexing problem. In some cases, I see a magenta-tinted dot in the center of my images. I knew it was related to the lenses, but did not know specifically what was causing it- thinking it was an internal issue to the lenses. I also noticed in some cases it was less noticeable than others.
Sensor Reflection
In this picture, you can see it clearly. While most of the time it is not this vivid, I chose this shot to highlight the issue.
In a DSLR, the CCD (image array) has a much shinier surface than did film in older cameras. As an image falls onto the sensor array, some of it is reflected back to the lens, and some of that can reflect again back down to the sensor. In lenses made for DSLRs, they have anti-reflective coatings to minimize the problem. But with older lenses, such as I am using here (this was taken with an old Canon FD-mount lens), the coating is missing and this can be a problem.
In this particular shot- a poppy seed, I have the seed sitting on an illuminated background- probably the worst situation. Likely, a darker background and diffuse side lighting would be best. I’ll need to experiment to learn how to minimize this, and will post results when I do. Needless to say, however, when you push your equipment to the limits, you run into issues where you must tightly control the situation, or make compromises.
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Exploring Flash, Part 1
By sirsnapalot | February 18, 2010
Nearly every camera has a flash, but I find that most built-in flashes create a less-than-satisfactory experience, unless you are just going for the snapshot. They are pretty much a pop-up (SLR’s) experience that brightens and sometimes over-brightens a scene, creates harsh shadows that show up on backgrounds, and are generally inflexible. You can of course modify the flash a little- if it’s too bright, you can try partially covering it with a finger, or try to deflect it off a ceiling or wall with limited success, but to get really creative, you need an full-up hot-shoe flash.
Canon Speedlite 580EXii
Since I have a Canon EOS50D, I chose the Canon Speedlite 580EXii. I understand that Nikon has a more flexible lighting system overall, but Canon’s is nothing to sneeze at. There are cheaper ones that this (the 430 for example), but I decided to get the best one I could.
For starters, it can control several additional flashes using infrared signaling, so if you are inclined, you can buy in addition several, cheaper Speedlite 430’s and use the 580 as a master and the others as slave units. One day I’ll have a second flash, but for now, I’m happy with my 580, and several studio lighting units I’ve acquired quite cheaply recently (future posts).
One of many features of this flash is the ability to multi-flash in one exposure. This is great if you want to capture motion or in effect, make multiple exposures in a darkened room, such as this shot:
Multi-flash Example
I had purchased a couple of shaped hole punches, and had collected punches from Post-It Notes and other various colored pieces of paper. Once I had about a hundred pieces of this confetti, I set up a black velvet backdrop (it’s always good to have some variously colored pieces of cloth around for backdrops), and got to playing with my Speedlite. I found I could both program how many times it would fire, as well as the rate of fire. So, I set it to fire 7 times at a 10Hz rate. I then set the camera manually to a 1s exposure, with manual focus. Then, I turned off the lights and sprinkled the colored snowflakes down and clicked the shutter with the remote. The flash would fire 7 times, and I would get a shot.
I did this some 30 times, and this was my favorite. Also, it took a few shots to both hone the number of flashes and the frequency of flash. At first, I didn’t even plan to use multi-flash, but found that the shots had only a few snowflakes and were not all that pleasing.
By stuttering the flash, I was able to effectively get 7 shots fired on the same frame. The 0.1s between flash firings was enough for the scene to completely change and register additional flakes, adding to the density of the shot. You can see the effect, as you can see snowflakes in some cases being a bit see-through. However, it does not detract from the shot and overall, I though the effect was pretty pleasing. And, a bit of colorful fun indoors when the weather here had been a dreadful gray for weeks on end.
More Flash stories to come as I experiment. The whole point of this blog is to both offer advice as well as to blog on my experiments, on-the-fly learning, and path to becoming a better photographer.
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Excellent Write-up on using Canon Flash units
By sirsnapalot | February 7, 2010
Though more technical and specific to a broad range of Canon EOS cameras and flash units, much can be applied to flash photography in general. It might take you an hour or two to go through this very in-depth write-up, but it’s well worth it if you want to have better results with flash photography.
–> Flash Photography with Canon EOS Cameras <–
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Super Macro #2
By sirsnapalot | January 30, 2010
Continuing on my macro journey to push the limits as far as I can, I went to eBay to see if I could find a better 28mm lens (the old FD mount)- one by Canon, instead of the cheap Albinar lens I bought 20 years ago when I was poorer and cheap. Albinar lenses were not good quality, and they don’t age well. I decided to buy a Canon-brand 28mm lens, as they can be had on eBay for $20-30.
I found out though, that Canon also made a 24mm lens. If you remember from older Macro articles, when you flip the lens around, the wider the angle of the lens forwards, the more it magnifies backwards. If I was going to purchase an old school lens for my macro project, I might as well not only improve the quality by buying Canon brand, but why not boost the magnification as well?
It turns out that the old 24mm lenses were rarer, and therefore were fetching higher prices on eBay- sometimes over $100. I bid on one, and lost it. I decided I didn’t want to get into a bidding war with anyone, so I waited until another one came on and tried again. I bid, and had the high bid for a few days, then got outbid. Here, I changed tactic. I waited… watching others bid a few dollars more here and there, and then waited until 10 seconds before the auction ended, and bid $70 (I did not want to pay more than that). By waiting until 10s, you don’t give anyone else a chance to respond and outbid you- it’s called sniping. I ended up getting a good, 24mm FD Mount lens for old Canon cameras for $51, so not bad!
Remember, we’re flipping the lens around backwards for macro work, so the mount really doesn’t matter. In fact, I could have just as easily used a Nikon lens on my Canon body.
When I got the lens, I found out it was 55mm in diameter, whereas my reversing ring adapter is 52mm. I needed a 55-52mm step up ring (step up attaches a smaller diameter to a larger lens, and step down does the opposite). So I ordered (from eBay again) the pile of step up and step down rings you saw in the previous article. One of those rings was my 52->55mm adapter.
Insect eye at 340x magnification
I was almost shocked that it worked this well. To be fair, this required some work. It is focus stacked first off- macro has a very shallow depth of field, and the higher the magnification, the thinner the plane of focus. It was taken with 14 pictures taken at very slightly different focus points to get sharpness, top to bottom. There is free software called CombineZ that will do this for you.
Since I paid for some other software called Photo Acute, which also does focus stacking, I used that instead. It also will use multiple pictures to increase the resolution further, so I got two benefits here- increased depth of field and increased resolution. The “raw” magnification of that new (well, old) 24mm lens backwards on the end of my bellows, is 675x. Doubling with Photo Acute led to 1350x, but really, it is not as usable as you might think. From there, I resized to this size (click on picture to see the best view on Flickr) and got a very good 340x. (“Raw” vs. “Usable” magnification will be discussed in a future article.)
Bug Size Reference
For scale, here is a picture of that bug next to something you’re familiar with. You get an idea of how tiny that eye really is. I’m really looking forward now to spring, when the bugs start to come out. I really want to zoom in on a housefly, with their marvelous, compound eyes.
I was pretty excited by these results, so I kept taking pictures of things. It’s very difficult to find your subject when it magnified so much- not to mention, it’s very dim in the viewfinder. I have some tips how to make that task easy in a future post as well (I need to take some decent pictures of the setup to demonstrate it). One thought was to photograph something that didn’t need a light source- the lit display of my mobile phone.
LCD Pixels
Believe it or not, these are actual Red, Blue and Green pixels on the display of my Nokia E71. I had no idea they were shaped this way. I had done some macro LCD before (never to this detail), but they appeared to be straight bars of light, so I was excited to see something new and unexpected here.
I’ll be posting more experiments, and of course, results of any further improvements in my macro adventures.
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Step Up/Step Down Rings
By sirsnapalot | January 27, 2010
In my insane drive to push macro as far as I can and as cheaply as possible, I bought these two sets of rings from Fotodiox on eBay. Together, all 14 rings cost me a total of $15 + $4 shipping.
Step Up/Down Rings
What they do is step up, or down, from diameters of 77mm to 49mm. They allow you to attach lenses of various diameters with filters of various diameters. Step up attaches a smaller filter to a larger lens, and step down attaches a larger filter to a smaller lens.
In extreme cases, such as attaching a 49mm filter to a 77mm lens, you would obviously seriously restrict your field of view. But with all these here, you have tons of options, and in photography, anything bad (restricted field of view) can be made good in some cases.
For me, I have an old Canon FD-52mm adapter mount that allows me to mount my old Canon FD mount lenses from centuries ago (OK, the 80’s and early 90’s) to backwards on my camera to do macro work. Lenses work fairly well in reverse, and they do the opposite- wide angle becomes a telephoto. The wider, the higher the magnification when flipped around. The adapter screws into a 52mm filter ring on the lens and the other side mates with the old Canon FD mount. The problem is, my old lenses had various filter sizes. So, I found these rings and solved the problem (and one of them was used in creating the bug’s eye picture next image over).
Also, I took the stepping rings photograph in my new light box with white plexiglass (1′ square piece), and I really like how professional it came out looking like a real product advertisement photo. I’ll have to post some pictures of my setup sometime in the near future.
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Using a Light Tent (or Lightbox), Part 1
By sirsnapalot | January 24, 2010
I acquired an ImageMaker Light Tent recently, and have had some fun trying it out. A light tent is quite useful if you are trying to photograph things around the house, and you want to isolate them and better control the lighting of them. This is Part 1 of several articles on photographing using a tent. Suffice for now the best picture to date I have taken in these very controlled circumstances.
Wine Glasses in a Light Tent
What I like about this photo is that the lighting- here backlit, is diffused. The tent itself shields the shiny glass from reflections. Also, I had to shoot at night to get this desired effect- a single backlight providing the illumination with no other ambient lighting. To darken the light, I used a piece of black cloth draped inside the light tent- the backdrop here.
Another good purchase I made was the piece of black plexiglass- here a 1 foot square piece. It provides a reflective surface, but the reflection is very muted. Also, I like how it blends with the black cloth backdrop.
With this shot, as with most around-the-house shots, you really need to pay attention to details. In this case, it was not just eliminating spurious reflections, but also depth of field so that both the glass in front and the back would be sharply in focus. Also, I they needed to be carefully centered. There are still a few minor things I would do differently- there is a label on the base of the front glass I would turn to the back. Also, these are cheap glasses, so have distortions in them. When you strive for a perfect shot, you realize that “perfect” is very difficult to achieve. Still, I’m pretty happy with the result.
I’ll be experimenting with this in the coming weeks and months, and will post some more articles, and details about the light tent I purchased (you can find them online for around $100- I bought mine at a local Wolf Camera store that also serves as a Wolf Camera Outlet store- they sell odds and ends there as well).
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Super Macro 3D Setup
By sirsnapalot | January 14, 2010
In the Super Macro bit I wrote last week, I mentioned a bit about the setup I used to get that super-close-up of table salt, at 280x. Here is a photo of that setup.
Super Macro Equipment
From right to left above:
- 28mm wide angle lens, in my case- an old Canon FD mount lens (by Albinar)
- Adapter Ring- 52mm thread screws into filter ring of lens, other side is the old Canon FD mount
- Bellows- this is the key part. You can use just about any lens to get magnified results. This particular combo is what got me the salt picture. This particular bellows extends up to 15cm from the camera. I’ve had this bellows for many years.
- Canon FD-EF Mounting Adapter. This allows me to mount older Canon equipment to the newer cameras.
You do not, of course, need to use old Canon equipment. You can buy newer bellows that are compatible with today’s cameras, but it’s likely to be more expensive. You can probably find the above equipment for any older brand of 35mm SLR cameras on eBay for quite cheap, relatively. The only caveat I can think of is if you have a new Canon, buy old Canon equipment, or a new Nikon, buy old Nikon equipment. I don’t have any experience cross coupling manufacturer brands. The final piece, however, the lens, could be any brand as long as you have the appropriate size filter adapter ring (since it is flipped around backwards).
I checked around- you can find an old Canon FD 28mm lens for $20-40 dollars. I just checked on the bellows, and was surprised that the bellows above was going for $125 on eBay, but that is still cheaper than a new EF-mount bellows. Also, my bellows was a basic one- some have more bells and whistles (such as tilting) and mass (for stability). But still, you might be able to find one more cheaply. The FD-EF Mounting Adapter was $30 on eBay. And I found the FD Lens Reversal Adapter (52mm) for $9.99 on eBay just now. So this stuff is around. If I were to purchase all this equipment right now, it would cost me $20+$125+$30+$10=$185 + shipping, all from eBay.
You don’t need the bellows to get some magnification, but that will increase it dramatically. The above setup will yield, raw, 555x magnification. It is blurry though, so some reduction is needed to get it sharp. But the results (salt picture in previous article) are promising.
One other note in that table salt picture- I took 7 pictures, and combined them in Photo Acute, a resolution doubling application that uses wavelet analysis of multiple images to increase real resolution. Without that, I probably would have had closer to 150x, which itself is pretty impressive.
More articles on Super Macro will be forth coming, as well as the use of Photo Acute to push even further into the microscopic realm. And, I have bid on an old Canon 24mm lens, which should yield even higher magnification. My 28mm lens is an Albinar lens, and those were not known for high quality. I would like to have a Canon lens- at this magnification, quality helps.
And finally, you need a good tripod to stabilize the camera, as at these extreme magnifications, any shaking at all is amplified. I used mirror lock-up and 10s delay to minimize that. I have a Manfrotto (formerly Bogen) tripod on order- 055XPROB + 488RC2 head, a tripod that is good for macro as well as general use (it will go horizontal). More on that in a future article as well.
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