Brisbane winter storms time lapse

Well as you are probably aware, I am having an absolute ball with this time lapse photography. The more I get into it of course the more gear I want, I was going to say "need" but that would be untrue.

I have been using the 'Nero trigger' which I bought a few years ago for about $300.00 if memory serves. I must say that I am very impressed with the time lapse feature, not having used the other features yet I cannot give an opinion on them, however a great bit of kit for any photog. It weighs only a few grams and is not much bigger than an LCD screen. 

Before I go on I had better clarify something right off the bat... I am not sponsored by anyone for anything and the opinions I give are my own from my experience as a result of my choices just as any choice you make is your choice and we are each responsible for our own research and consequences.

Anyway back into it.... the last couple of blogs were about some of my silly mistakes and I shared the result of those so that you could see how much time could be lost. You need to be very mindful of the number of shots you are going to need because time lapse photography is a very time consuming exercise. I'm going to share my rule of thumb - 10seconds per hour. Shooting at 1 image per 10 second interval will give you 6 images a minute or 360 images an hour. Now if you are in Australia you would be using the PAL system where the best compression is H.264 to produce MP4 quality video and unless you are shooting strictly for TV you would most likely want to use the standard HD 1080p 25fps which equates to 14 seconds of video footage. To put this in perspective, the average working week is 38 hours (I think) but it would take me 42.85 hours to produce 10 minutes of video and that does not include post processing.

As you can see little errors can become costly blunders in the blink of an eye but it's all good as I'm making those mistakes for both of us and as long as you follow my blog I will steer you clear of the gopher holes I step in. When you get it right and you finish putting together even a few minutes of video footage, with sound effects and music score, the sense of self satisfaction is absolutely huge. For me the most important thing is satisfying my biggest critic and my biggest client - Me! If others like my stuff, even better but the bottom line is, if I'm not satisfied - no one else will ever see it.

Last week I said that I would post some 'good' work (I would be grateful for your opinion), but I'll only include a link here as the quality of the video's within these blogs, leave a lot to be desired as do you tube and other online services, only because the internet needs huge bandwidth for quality, a costly commodity.

Vimeo Link: https://vimeo.com/104994721

Youtube Link:  http://youtu.be/Tlfo-EvPeR0

I'm quite pleased with the end result, of course there were a number of issues during the shooting that I'll be improving on but at this point in time ... what do you think?

Now I've have just started to photograph the magic hour (that hour after sunset) when ramping is required for the transition from day to night. For this I'm using a little app on my Galaxy S III called 'Triggertrap' which has a "Bramping" (Bulb Ramping) feature. I've only used it once so far and for light trails but Oh-la-la the result is beautiful :) More of that next time.

Till next time, take care and stay safe.

PS. Please do comment below, the feedback (good or bad) is ever so encouraging.

2014 Fireworks

Well my first project for 2014 was to photograph fireworks. This is my first attempt at capturing still images of fireworks and I learned quite a few little lessons which may be helpful to other novices out there :D

Firstly I had arranged to go in a group, we would leave early to get the best position for both the fireworks and the New Year festivities. There were to be children in the group so we would need to cater to their needs first and so we felt it was necessary to allow the guardians of the children to have the final say on departure times and itinerary. In hind site this was my first error as changes to timeline and miscommunication caused an exceptionally late start for Ronnie (my Bonnie wife) and I as the group failed to eventuate and the best (in fact all worthy) vantage points had been taken. My advice to avoid disappointment, is to be sure that you remain in control and set solid guidelines and timelines.

Since the primary location positions had been taken we opted for our secondary location and made the assumption that the fireworks display would be similar to another major event called "River Fire", this was our second mistake, don't assume anything - research the event and make informed decisions. As it happens there were only fireworks at the primary location which was on the other side of the city and not visible to us. 

We did salvage the disaster by catching some awesome city nightscape images like this one:

Camera; Sony a99 - Lens; 22mm f/2.8 (Sony Wide Angle) - Settings; ISO200 - f/22 - 181.0 sec

There were to be two fireworks displays, one (about 40% of the payload) at 20h30 for the children and the other at midnight (about 60% of the payload). Upon realising that we were not going to get good captures at the earlier event we decided to join friends at Scarborough Beach where there would also be a fireworks display, albeit smaller. We were improvising on the fly and hoping for the best as we dashed off to catch a train back to our car.

After a quick pitstop at home to grab extra glasses and bubbly we headed to the beach. I had read something about the fireworks display being on a barge 50-100 meters out on the bay... I thought, the third mistake.

On arrival at the Scarborough Beach event, it was raining but easing so we went ahead and took up with our friends, it was getting late so I took a few extended exposure captures and got ready for the midnight event and setup facing into the bay (the night was as black as the proverbial hell). Note everyone appeared to be facing that way so they were not following my lead, but rather I was following theirs (my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)

Countdown and "bang" off went the first fireworks... I could hear them but they were not in front of me as expected... what the?? The fireworks were to my left down the other end of the beach... well what a comical tangle I got myself into, trying to reposition my tripod and camera hastily - out the window went my plans to start with a high ISO and wide aperture with about a 10 second exposure and systematically alter the settings until I found what would suit me best... I lost my composure for a moment and was all over the place.

The lesson from this was to make sure that you know where the action will take place well ahead of time. See 15 Tips for Successful Fireworks Photography to get an understanding and starting point so that you don't fall into the same trap that I did.

As I said earlier, we were able to salvage what could have been a disaster thanks mainly to the fact that I shoot in RAW (the data is there) and use Lr5 for all my post processing (to extract the RAW data and salvage what appears to be a disappointing capture). Now don't get me wrong, it is far better to get it right in camera than to spend time correcting avoidable errors but if it's your first attempt at something this can be just the confidence boost you need.

Firstly I'll show an example of the RAW capture pre processing;

Camera; Sony a99 - Lens; DT 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 - Settings; ISO 200 18mm f/16 3.2sec

My ISO was too high and aperture was too narrow (small) so a lot of the detail was missing from the actual fireworks. Whilst ISO 100 and f/8 would have produced the same detail in the firework there would have been less noise to compensate for.

The following is a post Adobe Lr5 processing of the same image; I'll provide the settings that I used in this instance. Please note that different lighting and distance of the original image's will require variances to the settings that I will provide and as always beauty is in the eye of the beholder so what works for me may not work for you but experiment, try different settings and surprise yourself.

Lr5 Basic changes only were made.

All changes were only to the second Panel "Basic" (The first being "Histogram"). I started with "Presence" settings as I was unconcerned with White Balance (WB). 

1) I pushed all three sliders (Clarity/Vibrance/Saturation) to +100 which causes everything to pop and introduces a lot of noise and grain. 

2) Now we need to compensate for these changes so I work backward - it's a night shot outdoors so I don't need black and it will remove grain if I push it to +100.

3) Next I need to check my exposure which should have been about 8 seconds but we need to be gentle so I pushed this up to +1.65.

4) I add a little Highlight to +20.

5) I want my whites to be whiter than white so pump it up to +6.

All this is very well but now for the trick to reduce all that noise we have created, actually we have not created anything it was all there to begin with, we have just adjusted what gets the focus and what does not or rather we have increased everything except Contrast and Shadows.

6) Now I reduce the shadows down to -100 (in this case) to  remove all that nasty stuff.

7) adjust the Contrast if needed - I left mine at 0 for this shot.

That's it folk - All I do next is add a border and my logo in Photoshop, you can see the rest of my Fireworks images here. Remember to like is nice but sharing is caring.

Till next time - Take Care.

Lr5 Clarity

It has been several months since I posted anything on this blog and I must apologise for that. Life has taken a few unexpected turns, as it does from time to time.

I have recently upgraded my Adobe Lightroom from version 4 to version 5 and I have to say that whilst there are not many improvements, the few that there are are outstanding but I've not played enough to go into any great detail.

I always shoot in RAW and there are 4 settings in Lightroom that I always use. It is these settings that I will discuss today. My beautiful wife Veronica "Ronnie" has graciously volunteered to be my model with no make-up, hair-dye or other modification, before or after other than the settings I'll outline here;

1 ) White Balance - 99% of the time I don't need to make any adjustments. (However, I'm an artist first and a photographer second so I'll sometimes change this for effect). 

2 ) Clarity - for landscapes I always increase clarity but for portraits as a rule I'll decrease the clarity to compliment the skin tones. In this case I decreased the clarity to -88.

3 ) Vibrance - I use this vary sparingly on the plus side for landscapes as it does increase noise in the image but again with portraiture I tend to decrease the setting, again sparingly and in this case I am using -15.

4) Saturation - If I want colours to pop I'll increase the saturation and conversely I'll decrease the Saturation to prepare the colours for blending. With studio portraits I will often create blended backgrounds and less saturation really helps in these cases. Today I have used an increased saturation of +19 as I have a dark background with sufficient lighting to create separation.

Before and After Lr5 adjustments

These settings have been used to that you can see the difference clearly. Remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder so use the settings that please your eye.

Till next time - Take Care.

Post processing for clarity

Well it certainly has been a hectic few weeks and as usual I've probably bitten off more than I can chew considering my family's circumstances. Lets just say that there has been an over abundance of medical issues in my close and extended family and some prayers would be most welcome.

Okay staying positive - I took Bonnie Ronnie for a drive in the country to cheer her up and of course I had my trusty Sony a65 camera in the boot (wish I had a 4WD). During our travels we couldn't help but notice the build up of cloud on what started as a clear blue sky day. It seemed the further and higher we travelled the greater the cumulus. The views were spectacular and made more so by the heavily pregnant cumulus and I just had to stop (carefully as the ground was a bit sodden and my little front wheel drive doesn't like 'sodden') and take a few photographs - I thought what a perfect opportunity for a spectacular panorama but unfortunately I muffed that, ...yes I make mistakes and truth be told - a lot of mistakes!

I did however get some great images which I have posted on our FB page while Ronnie relaxed to some great music as she took in the views. We wound up at Mt Mee which is located about 20km (as the crow flies) inland from the Sunshine Coast with spectacular views to the ocean and to Brisbane but just a little too far for the camera to capture with the lens I had with me.

By the time we got to Dahmongah Lookout Park, the heavens had given birth to a wonderful downpour of rain, however the views were pretty well shot - no pun intended. I took a few images anyway, I always shoot in RAW and it is amazing just what the camera does catch. I've just upgraded to Lr5 and this is the first photograph that I have processed with this new version. 

I thought I might step through the process I used. 

Original in camera shot

The top picture is obviously the original image straight out of the Sony SLT a65 using DT 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 lens, focal length 55mm ISO 100 1/160th sec at f6.3 RAW format. Shot in Priority mode.

Cropped and processed with Lr 5

In Lightroom 5 - Firstly I cropped the image to remove a distraction from the left and the bottom of the image so that the composition made use of the lines to draw the viewer into the story. As I do with every image I checked the WB (White Balance) and determined that I would go with 'As Shot' (since it was correct in camera anyway). I usually then move straight to 'Presence' as I did here and set 'Clarity' to +86 (a bit high but it was raining and I wanted to bring out the rain trails). 'Vibrance' was set to +75 again pumped up pretty high to make some of the detail pop (of course this introduces quite a bit of noise and thats why I shoot at ISO 100 wherever possible). 'Saturation' is set at +21 as the rain washes out a lot of colour and this ensures that detail which will be brought out has quite a bit of colour and tonal contrast. 

Next I adjusted the 'Tone' - increased the 'Shadows' to +66 (one needs to keep an eye on the histogram here ...and at all times as we want to avoid any 'clipping' (no data for print)) this will usually produce a blowout of 'Highlights' so I reduced them to -56 and reduced the 'Whites' to -46 all of which produced clipping in the darks to I increased 'Blacks' to +30.

From here I usually move to 'Tone Curve' and play with the curve in the histogram to produce the detail and effect that I'm looking for typically a slight 'S' curve as in this case but I really pull this curve in every direction starting large and refining as I go with a little tweak to the above settings here and there. There is no set formula it is all about you and your story. In this case only the 'Lights' +34 and 'Darks' -24 were adjusted.

Then I went directly to 'Lens Corrections' but I just enabled 'Remove Chromatic Aberration' as all I wanted to do was ensure that the rain trails didn't contain any green or purple. That is it.

Filters added with Nik's Color Efex Pro 4

Now you are probably wondering what this last image is all about. I sometimes find that even though I can extract a lot of detail from the RAW format it doesn't quite give me what I'm looking for - usually a little larger than life look ....a little surreal I suppose ...extra pop if you like, ...whatever you want to call it.

So I created a third copy of the original image and opened it in Color Efex Pro 4 from Nik (a fantastic set of tools for all photographers). I applied only 2 filters - 'Detail Extractor' to the whole image with all settings in single digits and 'Tonal Contrast' with settings between 9-25 High Pass.

Note the extra detail especially in the cloud and in the dominant tree. Ronnie always says it's too much for her taste but I like it - what do you think?

Till next time - 'Capturing Inspiration'

Silver Efex

I've spoken about filters and Nik filters in particular, in the past. I have played around with the Color Efex Pro 4 app quite a bit and am very pleased to say that it can save a bucket load of time in post processing where one is trying to achieve a particular effect. 

Of course all of these effects can be produced in Photoshop and saved as "Actions" so that they can be replicated time and again but before I start getting into that type of commentary I have a little more practising to do. 

I want to fiddle around with real ND filters, Graduated Filters and the like on camera but whilst I am doing this with new photographs, on days that I don't get out and about to try these filters I am using the software filters to become familiar with them on some of my older shots.

Over the last couple of days I have been using Lightroom 4, Photoshop and Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2 app to produce the same result with some Black and White photo's. I have to say that for me, Photoshop is the most versatile particularly if you want to be able to go back and alter one small aspect of an image but if it's a quick do once and post a final image then the Nik Collection is the one for me.

I'll put up 4 samples of the same image, (San Francisco's Trams) the original is in colour followed by a B&W, a Bluish tone B&W and a sepia tone B&W - The colour image has had a little tonal adjustment in Lr 4 and the B&W copy was also created with Lr 4. Both the Bluish and Sepia tones were an enhancement of the B&W image with Silver Efex Pro 2.

Personally I prefer the second image, there is something refreshing, crisp and clear with a Black and White image that just doesn't seem to come through on the others. What do you think?

Till next time, "Capturing Inspiration".

DoF or Focal Length

Today the weather isn't so great and my body is complaining a bit after the sudden drop in temperature so I thought that if I'm going to stay indoors, I want to do something a bit fun, like practice a bit with a DT 2.8/30 Macro Lens from Sony, well it was either this or spend time cleaning my workshop/garage and I simply wasn't in the mood for that.

I was looking at the chess pieces on the board in my lounge and thought, what a great subject for a little macro photography and I could test this lens in a variety of aspects. So I had a great day even though truth be told I am a little disappointed at the lens's mid range which appears to be allowing a little chromatic aberration to effect the image background but then it is a macro lens after all.

I used Lightroom 4's 'Lens Correction' and 'Tone Curve' to correct the chromatic aberration and give the images a little punch.

A distance shot at a distance of about 10feet focused on the near side corner of the board.

I decided that for these shot's I would keep the camera settings at ISO100 f2.8 1/250 and only vary the distance from the subject while shooting in Manual mode.

Approximately 5 feet distance with focus in the centre of the board.

Approximately 2.5 feet distance with focus on the captured pieces.

Distance about 1.5 feet with focus on the White's nearside Rook.

Distance about 7 inches with focus on Black's Bishop.

I estimate that DoF is roughly 30% of distance so overall a pleasant stress free day.

So I guess I'd better get into that workshop tomorrow and get it cleaned up after leaving sawdust everywhere after my canvas frames project.

Till next time, I'll be 'Capturing Inspiration'.

.

Post processing

Well what a hectic week, it was great being able to help some old friends in their time of need even if it does mean some serious catching up on my chores. We were blessed with a couple of Whale watching tickets for yesterdays cruise and what a pleasure it was in perfect weather.

We left really early, wanting to catch the sunrise over the ocean however I should have used the GPS as I missed our exit and lost 20 minutes. We still managed to arrive just before all the colour was lost and so didn't have enough time to setup a tripod for some longer exposures or even use of our ND Graduated filters. We did however manage to capture some awesome colours in RAW for a little post process tweaking.

I saw this photographer standing on the rocks while capturing the sea spray as the ocean buffeted the rocks he was standing on. He must have a very weatherproof camera I thought as the waves crashed around him and he was shrouded in salt water spray and mist. I loved his enthusiasm and just had to capture him engrossed in his inspiration.

Mooloolaba Mist.

How time flies when you are having fun, in our race to get to our cruise before it departed without us I managed a quick shot at an old hand crane on the wharf which had captured my imagination. I brought it up this morning and was a little disappointed at the result. I hadn't had the time to check my settings before taking the shot and all I seemed to have was a silhouette.... but, I had shot in RAW so I was able to not only salvage the shot but also managed to produce a fantastic old style photo effect as a result.

I used Lightroom 4 to extract the detail from the shadows before using Nik's 'Color Efex Pro 4' to add a couple of filters to give the photo that age bleached effect and added a somewhat scraggly border to frame the photo which would hopefully capture the attention and draw the eye inward. 

Before and After Post-processing

As you can see I've included a before and after shot, what do you think of the end result? Please leave your feedback in the comments section.

Till next time, capturing inspiration.

Filters

For a while now I have been experimenting with various filters in Photoshop as I learn to use layers and adjustment filters, masks and clipping masks.

I don't mind telling you that I struggled with the whole clipping mask and adjustment layer scene, kept getting hung up on how to apply the adjustment to just one layer. Slowly I'm getting the hang of this as I start looking at experimenting with HDR. It was with HDR in mind when I started processing this photograph of the Eifel Tower which was taken just on sunset with the sun setting to my right. Not a good shot by any stretch of the imagination and taken with a Nikon point and shoot on the run. 

Anyway I decided that I would play around with it and see what could be done but I thought I would play around with some of Lightroom 4 settings first then the plan was to take it into Photoshop for some simulated HDR. I have had a copy of Nik's Color Efex Pro 4 for a while and one of my favourite filters is Detail Extractor (I have managed to achieve the same or similar results in Photoshop and have actually created 3 actions for varying degrees of detail extraction) which also gives a sort of HDR effect. This software is a plug-in to photoshop and I quite like it since it saves an awful lot of time while I'm still a novice in photoshop.

Well I got quite carried away and didn't actually get around to trying an HDR simulation. Most of the effects that you see in the attached photograph were created just using Lightroom and as many of the tools there that I felt I could possibly get away with, but I did finish off with (very little) Color Efex for a little selected detail on the Tower and a little warmth in the sky.

I have included a before and after shot so please comment and tell me what you think of it.

Till next time - "Capturing Inspiration"