Monday, January 21, 2008

Jan 21 ~ Jan 27 - Words

Tuesday, January 22nd

Okay for today I wanted to give a little brand recognition. I can't get enough of Pentax, they offer so much in a camera at such a lower price than a lot of the competition. I also decided to play some more with extension tubes. This is a shot of my flash with the 12mm and 36mm tubes stacked. It is hard to tell from this shot, but it is interesting all the little things on the flash. In the full resolution version you can see little pieces of white on the x, like the letter is starting to peel off. Also the letters aren't white, even though they look white, there is a little bit of texture to them. Anyway, the small resolution file doesn't do this shot justice, click on it for a slightly bigger picture so you can see a little bit what I'm talking about. I had fun with it though. HHCC welcome and wanted.




f/13 @ 30" ISO 200








Monday, January 21st

I wasn't in a very creative mood today, so this is what you get for my first word shot. This is a shot of my 36mm extension tube with my FA 50mm 1.4 lens stacked on the 12mm and the 20mm tubes. I could have got even closer if I had stacked my 36mm too, but then of course I wouldn't have the words to take a picture of. Macro shots are starting to be fun for me, I can't wait for spring when I can try this out on the tradition flowers and bugs kind of stuff. HHCC welcome and wanted.





f/11 @ 1/60 ISO 200 Flash Fired

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Jan 14 ~ Jan 20 - PHOTOSHOP (Example: Before and After, Techniques)

Monday, January 14th Panorama

Another thing I have wanted to try for a while now is panoramas. This is one of my first tries. This is a shot of downtown Salt Lake City from high up in the avenues. Again photoshop makes this easy to do, it stitches things together nicely for you. The main things to keep in mind, is to figure out your exposure and lock that in for all the shots, different exposures can make things look off. Also overlap your images by about 25% so photoshop can stitch them together easily. Also it tends to shrink the outside images, so it is best if you take a shot with more in it than you expect to keep so you can crop it later. Also, shoot things in portrait position so you can get more of the scene from top to bottom. HHCC always welcome and wanted.






f/11 @ 1/125 ISO 200

Sunday, January 13th HDR

Okay, for my first photoshop technique I will start with something I have been wanting to try for a long time. I actually posted an example in my last post, here is my second attempt at it. I think this was a great opportunity for HDR (High Dynamic Range) because of the difficulty exposing a shot properly when near a lot of snow. Using this technique I can expose for the highlights and for the shadows and then have photoshop try to get the correct exposure at each spot in the picture. None of these shots have been adjusted other than the final merged product.


This is the darkest exposure used to bring out the details in the highlights.




f/8 @ 1/320 ISO 200







This was what my camera wanted to use for the exposure. I took shots at 1/3 stop increments down to the picture above, and up to the picture beneath.





f/8 @ 1/80 ISO 200






This is the brightest shot used to bring out the details in the shadows.





f/8 @ 1/20 ISO 200






And finally after merging all 13 shots together we get this HDR version of the scene.











This technique is a lot of fun, and I still have a lot to learn. Check out this thread I started at 2 Peas talking about how I did it, and hopefully more experienced people will way in and discuss things I missed. I definitely think that the finished product is better than any of the individual shots that make it up. HHCC welcome and wanted.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Jan 7 ~ Jan 13 - FOCUS Into 2008

Wednesday, January 9th

Another one of my focuses for this year is to learn how to use my PPing software better. One thing that I have been interested in learning about for a while now is HDR. This is the first picture I have done using this method. The first image is how my camera wanted to expose the scene. The second image is a composite of seven images exposed above and below the original exposure in 1/3 stop increments. I love how I can get details from both the shadows and the highlights using HDR, it will be fun to do more shots using this technique. HHCC welcome and wanted.





f/11 @ 1/80 ISO 200



















Tuesday, January 8th

One of my focuses for 2008 is going to be to take more pictures, so what a better place than here to take more pictures? For Christmas my wife got me a set of extension tubes, they are going to be a lot of fun and a cheaper alternative to macro lenses. Here is a shot I took of a baby Jesus from a nativity set, macros are going to be one of my focuses. BTW I can take whatever you have to say HHCC welcome and wanted.





f/11 @ 1/60 ISO 200